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Henry Finn Of 0N1 Force — The Future Of Storytelling, Plus: Metagood's OnChainMonkey
The vision that 0N1 Force holds for the future of NFT ownership is cross-platform integration. They foresee a boundaryless digital social network. And now they’re coming back on a scale that a lot of people did not expect. This episode features Henry Finn, aka Starlordy, the person at the helm of this billion-dollar brand. This is a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the mastermind behind a company making significant strides in its industry. Join this conversation as Starlordy talks about the background of 0N1 Force and its ground-breaking approach to art, storytelling, and technology. He also talks about the brand’s resurgence in what could be the greatest comeback story in Web3! Plus, learn about Metagood’s Dimensions 10K project inscribed on Bitcoin and why it’s so special. All these and more in this episode of Edge of NFT!
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Henry Finn Of 0N1 Force The Future Of Storytelling, Plus: Metagood’s OnChainMonkey
This is Henry Finn AKA Starlordy of 0N1 Force, the blue chip project that will always be coming back and delivering beautiful Web3 experiences. I’m on the Edge of NFT, the bluest blue chip show around. Stay tuned.
Stay tuned to this episode to learn how 0N1 Force is taking its unique style on a comeback tour to prove their commitment to greatness.
Plus, learn how much this guest values his reputation as an asset that surpasses any physical wealth.
Finally, hear about Metagood’s Dimensions 10K project inscribed on Bitcoin and why it’s so special. Before we move forward, don’t forget that our Outer Edge LA event returned to Los Angeles in March 2023. You can catch up on all the discussions, presentations and more by heading over to Watch.OuterEdge.live and registering with your email address. Then, you’ll have access to over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Binge watchers are welcome. Netflix, watch out. We’ll see you inside.
This episode features Henry Finn AKA Starlordy, the CEO at the helm of the billion-dollar brand 0N1 Force. This is a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the mastermind behind a company making significant strides in its industry. Before launching into the Web3 space with 0N1 Force, initiating the first anime and sideways PFP project, Henry Finn crafted a successful career in commercial, film and TV production. With a fifteen-year of experience under his belt, he partnered with notable brands such as Nike, Samsung and Google. The vision that 0N1 Force holds for the future of NFT ownership is cross-platform integration. They foresee a boundaryless digital social network. Henry Finn, Starlordy, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.
What’s up? Thanks for having me on.
It’s been a minute since Outer Edge LA. It was great to have you as part of that. There’s so much history on this show and context around real projects that have long roots in the space that are continuing to evolve. I’m excited. Fun fact, the last time we had 0N1 Force on was episode 60 so we’ve been through over 170 episodes since then. It’s been a minute.
I am very glad to be on. I am excited.
We have a lot to catch up on. For those folks that maybe haven’t checked out every episode in history, there are some. I met one of them at VeeCon. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about the background of 0N1 Force and its ground-breaking approach to art, storytelling and technology? Where did this all begin? Where does it fit into the space?
0N1 Force was the first anime PPF project for sideways PFP, the first to create and use the allow list as it’s now known. It was the first project to use storytelling and art as a key part of its ethos as a PFP project. There were other little things, like first-to-use Lo-fi music in Discord and things like that. At its core, it was all about the art and the storytelling. That’s something that set it apart in the early days. For people that don’t know, it was minted right after Bored Apes. It was a massive hit. It sold out in five minutes and was an original blue chip project.
The beauty of it is that where we’re at, nothing’s changed. We’re still all about storytelling and art. That’s still a core part of our DNA, what makes us tick and one of our biggest value drivers for the community. With the new ownership group and a team that we have in place, it’s more about taking that mission and executing it in a big way.
You have very unique ideas. We’re going to talk about a comeback tour. We can talk here about reminiscing as Josh did. It’s funny in this space to reminisce about, “About 12 months ago or 18 months ago, back when we were wee children in this whole development.” You guys are doing this comeback tour. I’m curious if you could shed some light on what exactly this entails and how the audience can get involved.
To continue the history of 0N1 Force, after being such a major success early on, it was also one of the first or early blue chip projects to fail or take a tumble in a lot of ways. I came on in late January or early February of 2021 as the project manager. By the time I came on, it had dropped from 7 ETH to 0.2. You could imagine how tough that was for the community involved and its place in Web3 in a lot of ways. We hung in there for a good year when all of the diehard fans knew that this was a valuable brand and it still had a lot of importance in the space. It was because of the previous ownership group and the mismanagement of the brand that a lot of people in the space had written it off.
0N1 Force: After being such a major success early on, 0N1 Force was also one of the first or early blue-chip projects to take a tumble in a lot of ways.
First of all, I was a huge fan of the art from day one. I’m complex as art still holds up. It’s still one of the top PFP art projects in the game. As an outsider, initially, I was a huge fan. That’s what kept our community together. We had this strong belief that there was something there. Also, the community itself was legendary in terms of the value that it brought in the early days and the type of talent that we attracted. I still felt that passion, faith and belief were there in our core community.
I remember probably in my first or second Town Hall, way back when. I proclaimed that we would be the greatest comeback story in Web3. This is why we’re still at 0.2. There were probably a lot of people who laughed at me for that but the people who were the core members of the community believed that was possible if we could get certain things right. We hung in there for a year until we got through the acquisition. Since we have this brand-new fresh start and opportunity, what else would we call it? It is the comeback tour. We’re here. We never left. The space is finally noticing.
For us, the comeback tour is a way to give a lot of acknowledgment to our core community, the people that supported us and suffered during that time. You could imagine if at one point any time brought up 0N1 Force, there would instantly be memes about us, people dunking on us or people writing us off. That’s hard for a community to bear to go out there and see that in the Discords, Twitters and stuff. It was painful in a lot of ways. It showed their faith in the brand. This tour is for them to have that moment that they deserve where they can feel vindicated for support.
Also, in a broader sense, everybody loves a comeback story. It’s almost ingrained in our DNA. There’s something special about that that the vast majority of us can identify with. We’ve expanded the theme of it to include anybody who has ever felt outcasted, doubted or has ever had their challenges in life. We want it to be inspirational so that people can see if we could come back, then pretty much anybody has a chance to. That’s what the comeback tour is all about.
Eathan mentioned a year. It’s been at least a year and a couple of months. That’s 10 years in Web3. I appreciate the nuance there in terms of a place for everyone that appreciates this type of art. Maybe you could tell us a little bit more in terms of what the DNA of the art in the community comes down to. You’re a little bit biased but you’ve been on the outside and the inside. What is so special about this vision that attracts such a wide swath of folks?
This is something I’ve been thinking about very deeply for a long time. We call ourselves the first anime PFP project because we are but one day, I saw a lineup of anime projects of the PFPs in a grid. I realized something interesting. The art by IMCMPLX is very unique. If you put it against other anime projects, it’s odd in a way. It’s not fully anime in the same way that some of the other projects are. For people that don’t know, it was greatly inspired by the art of gorillas. You could see it in the mouth, the teeth and the shape of the jaw.
I call IMCMPLX the Tarantino of PFP artists because there’s something about him that his knowledge is so deep in all of the areas of art, anime, manga, comics, gaming, fashion and toys. Once you start talking to him, it’s crazy how knowledgeable he is. Shoes and all that stuff, he knows the history of all of those things. He knows how to make that. His attention to detail is crazy.
The reason why I call him the Tarantino of PFP artists is he somehow manages to combine all of these different aesthetic things into one package that is uniquely his. You can’t find one project out there that looks like 0N1 Force. We’re talking about how many tens of thousands of projects have launched since then. That uniqueness is what attracts a lot of special talent. People who know art and who appreciate art can appreciate the quality of it.
I’m not joking. There are times when I would sit and pull up the collection. I love art. I would pull up the collection and stare at it. I would zoom in on it and look at the way he did the lines or the way he did the shading on the hairline or the way he does shadows and stuff. It’s immaculate. In great art, those invisible things that influence the artists speak to people somehow. It has resulted in us naturally attracting top-level talent in every field in Web3. We want to continue that and turn ourselves into a home for artists because of that.
That’s one of the Catch-22s of great art and being a great artist. Oftentimes, the greatest are the ones that invest themselves so deeply in the details. It’s easy to get lost in the details and the shuffle in terms of getting the exposure that you might deserve as an artist. That tends to be the pattern. It’s a Venn diagram. Those that pay close attention to detail tend to be among those that are treasured and revered but not everybody that pays that close attention to detail gets that reverence and attention.
It’s cool to see it. It’s a great investment to know that IMCMPLX is doing that kind of investment in the work and the understanding of the history, art and all those aspects of things. You mentioned bringing talent to the project. There’s talent involved and advisory as well. Those things are key to the growth of it. As you’re steering the ship here, how do you plan to recruit new talents and advisors here that help bring things to life?
There is a famous Kobe line when they ask him, “How do you recruit people to the Lakers?” He said, “If you want first place, come with us. If you want second place, go with whoever you want,” or something like that. That’s the pitch. We believe ourselves to be one of the greatest art PFP projects and the art still stands up.
More importantly, we love artists. We genuinely love creators. Those are not just artists but developers, marketers, storytellers and writers. It doesn’t matter. If you’re in the game of creating something for Web3, we want you. For us, we celebrate at our core, the people. It is similar to, honestly, Edge of NFT. Like how you said at the beginning of the intro, for all the people that want to be pushing the space forward that are innovators and care about technology, art and all that stuff, we want to build a home.
There are a lot of great artists out there. A lot of them have all the ingredients on paper, whether it’s paying attention to detail, asking why or having the technical skills but somehow, a lot of artists fall through the cracks. For us, we want to provide that place where artists get a chance to be seen and heard. That’s our main pitch for talent.
Not only will you have the best chance to develop your Web3 career with us but also, you’re going to feel so much love and appreciation that you’re not going to want to go anywhere else. The last thing I’ll say is we’re also very open and collaborative. The way that we work with people is we give them a chance to do what they want and be who they want to be as artists. It’s not so much about directing them or controlling their work but more about providing a place for them, like a playground.
I appreciate all of that. That’s what we’ve tried to be as well, a place for all the different types of creators and builders in the space to come together and create something bigger than themselves. Switching ownership is not something to be taken lightly. It’s a pretty big deal. A lot could go wrong and right. We would love to better understand what the new ownership DNA is all about, how this came about and how you guys are working with this new ownership group.
The new ownership group is a consortium of people led by OFR, which stands for Old-Fashioned Research. That’s a fund that was created by the ex-CFO. His name is Wei Zhou. He has the finance labs team as part of OFR plus other partners. It is also partly owned by Goltra who is the COO of Yield Guild Games. We have a group of heavy hitters. The people from OFR have been referred to as the greatest M&A group in crypto history. They created finance labs and acquired hundreds of projects and companies. Wei himself has been the CFO of two publicly traded companies. The list goes on and on.
This ownership group, since I have worked with them since February 2023, I honestly believe that when it’s all said and done, they are going to be looked at as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, ownership groups in NFT history because of the level of experience, resources and network. We’ve done more business development in three months than a lot of projects do in a whole year. We’re getting started. It’s crazy for me to be part of this.
The main thing though that I want to call out is that the original founders deserve a lot of credit for getting us to this point. First of all, you have to imagine the mental health situation. For a year, pretty much, you are being slammed on and getting death threats. They were getting abused by a lot of toxicity but they held on. To the very last moment, their whole mission was to find an ownership group or owner that was going to be able to take this brand to the next level.
When I first came on board and interviewed each of the founders individually, that was the one thing that they all had in common. They all said to me that they love this project. They believe in the community. They are proud of what they started. They wanted to make sure that whatever home they could find for it would be somebody that could deliver and take this brand to the place that it deserves to be. To their credit, they selected this group. They made the best choice. They have given us an opportunity to go to the next level.
A lot of people have money. Money is not the answer, to be honest. The thing that sets this group apart is that they share the values of this community. They have a mission that is important to us. When they first came on, their pitch to us was that they want to continue what we have already started, which is focusing on the art and the storytelling and allowing us to do that.
0N1 Force: Money is not the answer, to be honest. The thing that sets this group apart is that they share the values of this community.
They have proven true to their word. They have given us the resources and support. They’ve only enhanced what our mission is. That’s what makes this group special. We have an actual understanding of what’s important. When they bought the project, they referred to it as a community buyout because they factored in the community itself as part of how they valued this company. That’s what makes this group special.
I was probably going to leave after the acquisition because I have my ambitions and stuff but after meeting Wei and the team, I realized it would be silly for me to leave and miss this opportunity to work with them. There’s a famous line that when he had sent an email before the acquisition was done, he said that he wants this project to be positive, create hope in this space and be a light for the industry. At the end of the email, he wrote, “Love is love.” I was like, “That’s cool. That’s my kind of guy. That will keep me.” That was the moment where I was like, “I’m sticking around. I want to be part of this journey.”
That’s such a beautiful and candid answer to my question. I appreciate all of that. I don’t think everyone understands the amount of heart and conviction that goes into creating a project like this. To your point, you couldn’t be more open and vulnerable than birthing a PFP project in the early stages. It’s like having a child and having see-through glass doors and windows where the entire world is examining what you’re doing raising that child every second of the day. That’s the amount of pressure that goes into running a community in those early days when people have made a substantial investment of money.
Maybe folks, to buy this art that they love with expectations, hopes and dreams, it comes to something bigger than what it was when they got into the mix. You never know what’s going to happen there. Yet, those expectations only increase over time. Shout-out to the original crew. A lot of love to them. A lot of them have come to our events and are in the community. I appreciate you sharing what you’ve done as a result of being so inspired. Thanks for that.
The one thing I’ll add to that is that’s a great analogy. Everybody is judging you every second of raising a baby but they also expect that baby to be Michael Jordan when it grows up. It’s not easy.
We’re going to wrap up here in a minute. We’re going to get to our Quick Hitters. This is going to be fun, I’m sure. Are there any artist collaborations and other features we might want to look out for?
There are so many. To be clear, our mission is we want to be the greatest cross-platform storytelling experience birthed out of Web3. Comic books, anime, manga, gaming and live events, we want to make sure that our brand grows in all of those areas. We’ve put together key partnerships in each area to push us forward to be an S Tier project. For instance, we brought on Hicham Habchi who is the former Principal at Riot Games. He is responsible for a lot of brand development for Valorant, Overwatch and things like that. We brought on David Ulsan whose family owns the film rights to Batman. His dad produced the first Batman movie. He’s got a ton of experience developing IP and is helping us expand our distribution and development options.
0n1 Force movie.
That’s the goal. That’s been the rail from day one. We’re way closer than I would’ve thought in the sense of the moves that we’re putting together are going to help us leapfrog in a lot of ways. You could expect more partnerships in those key areas, whether it’s comics, manga, anime, gaming, fashion or lifestyle. Those are the core intersection of our group community so we’re going to be making a lot more announcements around those areas.
I am genuine about this. I’m not saying this because they’re part of the program. I have been exposed to OnChainMonkey early on. They were very good at building a core community that supported them in the early days and then what they’ve been doing with BTC is very interesting. They are a project that we watch to see what they’re investing in and how they’re developing things. Maybe that’s top of mind because of that but that is legitimately a project that we look at and would love to work with.
You get to watch up close again.
A comic book. Spider-Man.
It was also a comic book.
What is the most recent thing you sold?
I have to be self-aware.
You checked that box.
Are you a Millennial?
Yeah.
Let’s do it.
It’s great to be here.
It’s great to have you.
Thanks. What’s the hot topic?
Important Links
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Episode 60 – Past Episode
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Bill Tai and Amanda Terry – Past Episode
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Discord – Metagood
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Twitter – 0N1 FORCE
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@StarLordyFTW - Twitter
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@EdgeOfNFT – Twitter
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Spotify – Edge of NFT Podcast
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iTunes – Edge of NFT Podcast