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First Apes Wives Club, And More - Feat. Amanda Archer (Women Of The Metaverse) & Nicole Rochette (Dapper Labs), Plus Eric Siu From Level Up Heroes NFT
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First Apes Wives Club, And More - Feat. Amanda Archer (Women Of The Metaverse) & Nicole Rochette (Dapper Labs), Plus Eric Siu From Level Up Heroes NFT

NFT Amanda | Breaking Barriers

User experience and accessibility are both critical factors that should be focused on. Listen to your guests, Amanda Archer and Nicole Rochette, as they discuss their passion and goal of breaking down those barriers through empowerment. They dive deep into their objectives in creating more of an equitable space and a community-first approach. In this episode, Eric Siu joins them to discuss creating more opportunities for people in the NFT space. His critical insights center on the magic happening at leveling up heroes and NFT projects on a mission to build the next generation of entrepreneurs. Tune in to know more about their roadmaps, mindset, and excellent skills so you can have an idea of how to craft your vision too!

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First Apes Wives Club, And More – Feat. Amanda Archer (Women Of The Metaverse) & Nicole Rochette (Dapper Labs), Plus Eric Siu From Level Up Heroes NFT

This is Amanda Archer and Nicole Rochette. We’re representing First Ape Wives Club, the empowering NFT collection built for accessibility through Dapper. We’re on the show that’s helping to make all of your futuristic dreams more accessible. Keep reading.

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NFT curious readers, read this episode and find out how the FAWC Founders took a killer resume, deep relationships and core values that rock and crafted one of the most anticipated drops of 2022 and why buying a pickle factory would ever be anyone’s real dream come true and how veteran marketer and podcaster Eric Siu is taking his passion for education to the next level through NFTs. All this and more on this episode.

Don’t forget that we put a little soiree together called NFTLA that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head on over to 2023.NFTLA.live to get on the whitelist for tickets to our bigger, bolder and better but also as an intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to 23rd, 2023. See you there.

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This episode features Amanda Archer, Founder of Women of the Metaverse and Nicole Rochette, Head of Art Partnerships at Dapper Labs. Let’s hear a little bit about each of them. Amanda founded Women of the Metaverse or WOTM in 2021 as a new creative studio, NFT collective and development incubator to support women founders entering into the Web3 generation. With experts and artists from the worlds of tech, lifestyle, arts and entertainment, Amanda prioritizes projects that support female representation in film, TV, art, music and the world of crypto.

Her first NFT PFP collection, First Ape Wives Club or FAWC, is launching in September 2022. It includes custom lines of cosmetics, jewelry, events and merchandise in both the metaverse and real world. As part of her company’s commitment to supporting women, Amanda has dedicated 5% of the company treasury to organizations that also support female representation and creators.

Amanda also serves as Vice President, Talent and Business Development at the Hollywood film studio, Fandomodo Films, where she is actively producing several feature films later in 2022. Not to be outworked by anyone, Amanda also owns a PR firm, Archer Publicity, that has represented some of the biggest Hollywood personalities including Paris Jackson, Katherine Jackson, Prince William, Priscilla Presley, Hugh Jackman, Carmen Electra, Paris Hilton, Nicky Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Crystal Hefner to name a few. Let’s hear a bit about Nicole next.

Nicole Rochette is the Head of Art Partnerships at Dapper Labs. Her focus is on helping the transition of galleries, artists and creators into the crypto space and building a vibrant ecosystem tailored to them on the Flow Blockchain. Prior to Dapper Labs, she spent over one decade working in creative production, helping brands and digital artists elevate their stories through creative work and bringing them to life. She has worked with brands such as Dior, Aston Martin, Stella Artois, Patta and more on numerous campaigns in both physical and digital spaces. It’s so great to hear everything that’s up with all of you. It’s a lot. Welcome to the show. We’re glad you could fit us in.

Thank you for having us.

That’s amazing to accomplish. Welcome.

Here’s a shout-out to our friends at AE Studio for putting us all together. We met in real life and Abbot Kinney heard about this project. We were like, “This needs to be discussed on the show.” It’s so great to have you both here.

It’s going to be awesome.

Thank you so much.

I met Josh over drinks at AE Studio.

This is one of the drawbacks of us being in different parts of the world. We miss out on the things that are happening in each person’s locale. I’m in Chicago. Jeff is in Sarasota, Florida. We do seem to miss out on quite a bit of fun stuff going on over there and that Venice Beach microcosm of things going on.

I get the FOMO as well. I feel like everything is happening in LA. I’m based over in Lisbon. I peek behind the curtain. You’re always going out and having a great time.

I’m glad to play a role in it with NFTLA. I want to jump in here about First Ape Wives Club. You’re crafting a project there. It’s about fun but also about impact. It’s in the metaverse and IRL. I want to know how did that idea come about. What’s the genesis story there?

I was talking about First Ape Wives Club and how it came about. It’s a true real-life version of the movie The First Wives Club. That movie was about women who had been in relationships with men and been let down. They came together to empower each other and created a business to empower a community of women. One of my best friends, Farah Kaan, who’s the other founder of FAWC was in Puerto Rico having some personal issues.

I was flying out there as her best friend. Through wanting to get sucked into something new, we discovered the NFT world. We both got crazy about it and created a business to empower each other and her to know that as women, we can do things on our own, have exciting businesses and support other people, women, men and communities to inspire them to have a better experience.

With Puerto Rico, you’re naming another place there where the interesting stuff is bubbling up with crypto, NFTs and Web3 all the time. It’s a different environment than the Abbot Kinney or Venice Beach thing going on. Josh and I got to visit there together on a trip. It was pretty enlightening. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Puerto Rico.

It’s an exciting crypto community. We have been spending a bit of time with people out there. Some pretty cool things are happening. There’s no Uber Eats or Uber but you can still get by in life out there.

There’s Uber. At least we got Uber over there. It takes a little longer.

I thought we were with a pretty intelligent group of people but we weren’t intelligent enough to realize that we were all calling the same Uber driver. That was both racking up the rates for Uber and making the trip take longer. We would all book the Uber at the same time when we left the party. We would see the Uber car that’s supposed to be ours leave where we are, go to where everybody else was going, come back and then pick us up. We paid the extra money request.

The algorithm does not work on that scale very well. There are some amusing moments from that trip with Uber including when we had to go to a show and had five Ubers cancel on us. We had to delay the show.

It was probably the same Uber five times that canceled on us.

I do have a way of continuing to get money out of you and Puerto Rico.

This is such an exciting project concept, Amanda. You’ve had an opportunity to work with powerful female leaders in arts and entertainment for a long time. I’m excited to learn more about your vision of FAWC at the very core. What are some of the utilities and ownership perks that are going to be linked to your NFT collection?

Bridging the gap between Web3 and a wider community is something that we want to help break down. Click To Tweet

The first question about those powerful women is that we plan to bring them in as ambassadors and as part of a utility for our FAWC NFT holders. We’ve got Oscar winners, princesses, royalty ambassadors, actresses, directors and people who have created some of the biggest shows on the planet. They will all be coming into our community to work with mentoring programs, AMAs and speeches.

If we have cool forums, we want to livestream them, educate and break down the barriers that people have experienced trying to break into the entertainment world. On top of that, the utilities that we are giving people like automatic access as soon as they onboard with us are a bunch of lifestyle perks. We have partnered with a couple of the world’s leading travel companies who are very exclusive. You need to be referred memberships to get into these groups.

We have access to over 1,400 five-star hotels globally. These brands include Peninsula, Baccarat, Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La and Virtuoso. In any city, you’re going to have access to our perks. The perks programs at these hotels complimentary upgrades, $100 for food and beverage in the room where you stay, complimentary transfers in some hotels and notes and cakes from the general manager welcoming you. You do feel like it’s very VIP status.

Not only do you get to have access to Hollywood and that kind of thing but you’re going to be automatically given the lifestyle perks that those people experienced through VIP connections. We are opening that up as well as a global concierge team for anything else that you might need. We’re setting up ticketing programs with global promoters.

I’m yet to announce that but it is with the biggest ones in the world so that we will be able to give you quick access to the best ticketing and pre-release. If it’s coming up and you didn’t get them but you need to get to The Rolling Stones in Paris, we can get you those tickets last minute. We’re coming out with this perks program. We want to rival the Black Amex of this world and give it to people in the Web3 space.

What a list. That’s normally a three-year roadmap. That’s what you have coming out of the gate. You get some influencers behind some of these projects but what we’re talking about here with these folks being intimately involved at the very jump is impressive. Nicole, here’s a question for you. Besides not wanting a serious case of FOMO, what got Dapper Labs excited about this project?

I had pretty good access to Amanda through a friend of ours who heard about the project and introduced us. One of my objectives in Web3 is to create more of an equitable space. That’s also leaning into female-led projects in particular. When I heard about Amanda, Farah and the amazing work that they’re doing, it’s community-first and there’s so much utility baked into it that I had to lean in. My role within our ecosystem is a little bit like a crypto cupid or a matchmaker. My objective is to find these projects and help build out the resources that they need to be successful. From that point on, we have been shepherding and navigating the Web3 ecosystem together. I’m excited.

That was super important for us as well to find that shepherd role because in the NFT space, finding legitimate and trusted professionals to work with was something that we wanted because we know how important the structure and longevity of our businesses are. We were lucky to fall in to play with Dapper because that has been hugely beneficial.

With such an amazing new group of partners, the killer roadmap that you’ve laid out, as well as this core functionality, with your vision and the impact that you want to have on Web3 and the metaverse, how do you think about that? How far-reaching do you want what you’re doing to go?

Bridging the gap between Web3 and a wider community is something that we want to help break down those barriers because one thing that a lot of people listen to is Hollywood and entertainment. That usually can help impact a wider community using that but also diving into this community idea, which to me as a company is hugely beautiful and valuable to be able to have a community of people. You can help further their careers and experiences in life, give them good guidance and create a fun brand. Everyone is having fun at the same time. It’s an everyone-wins business for the community too.

I would build on that to say that this is driving empowerment and carving out space. Web3 can be so echo-chamber-y, exclusive and nuanced. The way that FAWC is looking at the Web3 world is through the lens of an experience with a little bit more levity and lightheartedness. It’s about being tongue in cheek and off the cuff. I don’t think that’s an audience that has been spoken to too much, especially through the female lens.

It opens it up to a wider audience and shows that it doesn’t have to be complex. One of the things we work on is user experience and accessibility. Breaking down those barriers through that empowerment is access to the incredible resources and benefits of FAWC but it’s also a Web3 technology. This is the direction we’re going. This is a conduit and a vehicle to get more people involved in that story.

There’s something to this formula of fun, familiarity and ease of use. Dapper with Top Shot nailed that. They won this iteration of NFTs in August 2020 when I bought my first pack and they dropped those Moments. You’re carrying that forward. It’s a whole other level, Amanda, that you’re working on here. You’re taking it to the next level.

I’ve been surprised at how few projects do genuinely bring that together in an authentic way, given it has been a couple of years since we have opened this next tranche of companies and development in the NFT and Web3 space. It’s exciting to hear about your plans here that bring these things together. It’s so evident how authentic it is, also given your resources to tap into all those relationships.

Here’s something to hook up to. I get to make a business out of it.

It’s so cool to see those elements come together.

Touching on the NBA Top Shot usability that I liked, that was one of the things that drove us to Dapper. We have that same Dapper Wallet set up. We’re excited to be able to offer that to our community. People who are breaking in because being able to have an email address and your credit card is super excellent for some of the ladies out there that want to join the Web3 community.

There are some value-based words that have jumped in here and there like user experience, usability and things like this. Inclusion I’m sure is part of what we’re talking about here. Is there anything specific that you outline when you think about core values or a message that you feel is core to what you’re doing with FAWC?

Female empowerment is one of them but it’s empowerment in general for the community and also being able to have fun at the same time. We want to do great things but we want to have a good time doing it. That’s something in inclusivity around the globe and making sure that everybody can have an experience. This experience is not going to be 1% of our members. This experience is going to be available to 100% of our members and their friends.

I resonate with that as well in general. As we embark into this creative community that we believe is the next phase of what’s going on in that creator economy, it’s going to take these messages getting to people where it awakens the empowerment of who they are outside of what they have been told they should be. Projects like this speak to that for sure.

September 2022 is when this collection drops. How is that going to work?

As you know, the market is continually changing. At FAWC, we ride the wave but we are going to do a whitelist VIP launch in Ibiza at the Six Senses on September 12th, 2022. We’re going to go live from there with a party. We’re partnering with Project Zero climate change groups. We’ve got some ambassadors from them like Kate Moss and Pixie Geldof coming out to Six Senses.

It should be a good old time. We would love to update everybody from there. Hopefully, on our social channels, we can show some live footage up and get a little bit of fun happening and excitement around the brands, in the media and anywhere else that we can. We will do a little VIP whitelisting thing and do the main drop when that’s ready to go. Nicole, what do you think?

NFT Amanda | Breaking Barriers

Breaking Barriers: When we discovered the NFT world, we both got crazy about it and created a business to empower each other and her to know that as women, we can do things on our own and support other people to inspire them to have a better experience.

To your point, “Ride the wave,” it’s going to be great to have the event in Ibiza. I also low-key have never been there. I’m very excited about being able to be there in the flesh. In terms of dates, we’re aiming for a mint at the end of September 2022. We will take it from there.

You alluded to this before. The animated film and series from Fandomodo are on the roadmap too. How far along are you? What can you tell us about that? That sounds like a cool element of this entire project.

Coming from the entertainment backgrounds we have, that was an automatic inclusion to come up with something like that. Anthony Kaan, who’s one of our CoFounders in Fandomodo, of which I’m also a Partner, has got very extensive experience in leading digital in the entertainment world. He ran the digital at Relativity Media back when that was a big deal. He also made the first web series for Disney.

He has run some of the biggest brands in the world at CAA like Marvel, Coca-Cola and things like that. Bridging the gap between digital and entertainment is hugely in his wheelhouse. We’re looking to attach some alien voices and things like that from our network to bring these Ape Wives to life. It’s a development in progress we hope to update on soon.

There’s no trailer being released necessarily but keep an eye out.

We’re still finalizing a lot of things for the design because we keep going and getting our Wives ready for the launch. The development process is underway but the animation is yet to come because we have to fine-tune a few things first.

What else can you share that might be next on the roadmap for FAWC? What do you have cooking? Is there anything you can share? If there is anything you’re not supposed to share, you can tell us.

We have some parties in the works because that’s part of our brand. We will have our first FAWC house in Tahoe in 2022. We’ve got this amazing property there for a few days. That is regularly rented by the likes of Justin Timberlake and lots of Hollywood people. It’s on the water. We also have a boat to get everyone together, do workshops, have a launch and invite some of our community and the other NFT community leaders out to try and develop things together.

We want to see what everyone is up to. We want to dive into being at the forefront of the trends that are happening for metaverse as they happen. We want to keep working with all the other founders out there to keep ahead of the curve and keep our community updated and our technologies moving at a good rate so that we provide everything everyone wants once we get to the metaverse.

You alluded to this but from March 20th to 23rd, 2023, you’re going to have this incredible party in LA.

Is that NFTLA?

AE and all the celebs are going to be there.

All are going to be there in a big way. It’s amazing. It’s going to be great.

We will bring our celebrities. You will bring yours. Dapper has got a few. We’re going to hopefully go large with Art Basel in Dapper as well. A lot is going on out there. It’s a big celebration time. We will be through the hard part of the market. It would be a good time to celebrate. I hope to get everybody into a big party out there. We’re starting to think about that but expect us for sure.

Amanda, is there anything to add there?

I take Nicole’s advice.

Pogs.

I hope I do but I don’t know where the box is.

Amanda, how about you?

Amanda, how about you?

That’s exciting. Is it any place fun?

London.

Amanda, how about you?

I’ve purchased coffee with no lunch yet.

It’s a sculpture my mom made.

Do you care to tell us what the sculpture is?

NFT Amanda | Breaking Barriers

Amanda, how about you?

Did I meet him at the studio?

NFTs have gone well for you then.

Nicole, how about you?

You’re getting it done. Nicole, how about you?

We can do that. I’ve got to go get tequila.

Nicole, what are you doing next?

Is it warm enough to go to the lake?

Nicole, do you have a favorite?

I have none left.

Mickey has the only Apeshit hat. There you go.

NFT Amanda | Breaking Barriers

Leveling Up HeroesSingle Grain

When is that happening?

I just came back from Spain but I’m down.

There’s the Web3 spirit.

Thank you. Have a good one.

NFT Amanda | Breaking Barriers