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Podcast October 24, 2021

Strawberry, JR & Em/Link Of 0N1 Force - From Free Pizza DAOs To Sold Out Side Profile Pics & Comics, Plus: Scottie and Chilly Of The Dope-1 Alpha's NFT Project, And More...

Life in the Ethereal Enclave was infinite and peaceful until one fateful day the benevolent Emperor died. His citizens themselves were left with their own deaths imminent in just 7,777 hours. Find out more about the intriguing story of the 0N1verse, 0N1 Force, and how it’s changing the NFT space. Join your hosts Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger as they talk to some of the incredible folks behind 0N1 Force. Listen to STRAWBERRY, JR, and EM/LINK on where the concept and narrative came from. Learn how Gorillaz inspired the artwork. Discover how important community is to NFTs. Find out how essential world-building is to 0N1 Force. Discover their thoughts on how NFTs are seeping into your personal life. Also, stay till the end to listen to Scotty and Just Chilly go deep the recent Dope-1 drop.

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Strawberry, JR & Em/Link Of 0N1 Force – From Free Pizza DAOs To Sold Out Side Profile Pics & Comics, Plus: Scottie and Chilly Of The Dope-1 Alpha’s NFT Project, And More…

All you NFT curious readers, check out this episode to learn about the ins and outs of 0n1 Force, where it came from and where it’s going next.

How do the 0n1 founders build a community on top of community, on top of community?

How Dope-1 is turning killer design, hip hop influencers and community-driven ethos into one of the most promising young projects in the NFT space? All of this and more in this episode. Enjoy.

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This episode features STRAWBERRY, co-CEO, JR, CMO and EM, Head of Community Relations of 0n1 Force. 0n1 Force is an NFT project of 7,777 unique generative side profile characters with over 100 hand-drawn features. Each 0n1 Force NFT grants owners access to a slew of perks, including the high-end resolution artwork and a one-of-a-kind experience within the 20,000-member Discord community. This project is now a leader in the NFT art industry with 100 million in launch trade volume in the first week now totaling 135 million, which sold out in minutes, including celebrity holders such as Steve Aoki, Logan Paul and Snoop Dogg and made the project the Number 13 ranking NFT of all time. Welcome to the show, folks. I’m excited to have you. It’s going to be fun.

We’re definitely excited to be here.

We’ve interviewed all sorts of leaders in this space. I have to say I’ve been so excited for this episode. I’m a bit of a fanboy here. Some of us met, I don’t know, EM, if you’re at that party in Venice that got shut down. Even though we were quite civil, I’ll tell a quick story. Basically, Gabe Wise was auctioning off some art and it kept going up in value. I was like, “Who’s this high bidder?” It’s JR. I’m supporting the community. It was legendary at that moment to meet you guys. It’s amazing to have you on the show. I know you guys have been cooking up a lot of amazing stuff. Thanks for coming on.

It’s great to have you guys.

I appreciate you. Josh, it was awesome meeting you. I don’t want to seem like this golden boy for doing that. I’ll look at that as an investment. If you asked me, a Gabe Wise piece for three Eth one-on-one is a steal. It was definitely a fun time. I appreciate it. It was nice meeting you.

I’ve heard glimpses and pieces of the story. I want to hear the whole story of how this amazing project took off like wildfire. Where did the concept begin? How did the team come together?

The whole concept, funny enough, came from me scrolling through my phone when I was listening to some music. The Gorillaz came on, which I am a fan of their music. They’re all works from Jamie Hewlett. I was like, “It’d be awesome if we’ve never seen a side profile view of the project yet. That’d be a great idea.” I tried my hand at it and it didn’t come out looking the way I wanted it to. It was very serendipitous.

I’d say minutes later, I’m scrolling down my Instagram feed and I see IMCMPLX at work and it’s a lot of side profile views. I was like, “This is perfect.” I sent him a message on Instagram and I said, “IMCMPLX, I know we met a few times in Clubhouse. We didn’t have a personal conversation. I have a brilliant idea. I want to throw it at you. Let me see what you think.”

She came back at me the next day with two concepts and was like, “I can’t stop drawing.” He’s like, “We need to do this. I’m on board. Let’s get it done.” I was like, “Yes. All right, now, how else can we piece this together?” I met STRAWBERRY in Venice as well. STRAWBERRY has literally been a pillar in this community since day one, constantly leading these NFT groups in Clubhouse. Everyone loves STRAWBERRY, bottom line. He’s always happy and supporting everyone.

NFT 57 | 0N1 Force

0N1 Force: A really good idea and concept artwork can really draw you in. That immediately created a conversation around the narrative and slowly but surely the team all came together.

I was like, “STRAWBERRY, I have this idea. What do you think?” STRAWBERRY is like, “Let’s do it.” He’s like, “I got CRYPTOSPACES.” We were thinking of, “Who can we bring in this team to help build the community?” IMCMPLX was like, “I got the perfect human for you.” That’s where we brought on LINK. It was scary how perfectly things fit into place like puzzle pieces. We formed together this beautiful team. I’ll let STRAWBERRY talk about it. I had the idea of the artwork that I wanted to take a slight direction and then STRAWBERRY and LINK drove the narrative behind it. STRAWBERRY, if you want to talk about the storyline a little bit.

After JR had approached us, myself, CRYPTOSPACES, who had worked previously on a project together, STRAWBERRY.WTF, we finally had all met and had some discussions. I almost immediately jumped into my web designer and started building a website for the project. My imagination effectively spiraled out as IMCMPLX showed off a little bit of the concept artwork that he had put together. I had been previously approached by a few other NFT projects.

However, they did not have concept artwork to draw me in as quickly as IMCMPLX had done. That immediately created a conversation around the narrative where CRYPTOSPACES and I started having a conversation. I and EM started having a conversation. Slowly but surely, the team all came together and decided on a few little breadcrumbs that we would help drive the narrative forward.

That would be in tying the amount of NFTs that we had, where we were wanted to create 7,777 into the narrative itself, which we have said that, effectively in this world, the ethereal enclave, suddenly the emperor passes away. We’re not sure why or what happened. However, when that does, everyone feels a change. They feel a shift in frequency and we specifically call that the shift.

As a result, we’ve said that there are 7,777 hours remaining in this world. We’re not sure what happened at that time but we presented this idea and concept to the community. As a result, they grabbed on so hard that there is literally a novel written in the Discord around their ideas, characters and the few glimpses into this world that we originally gave them. As we’ve moved forward, that narrative has become somewhat of the forefront where we find a lot of success in our project.

There was so much momentum out of the gate even prior to launch. The intersection of community and story that drove mass adoption, for lack of a better phrase here. How do you maintain that from this point forward?

It’s certainly one of the most challenging things of this project. While we have been wildly successful, we certainly did not know how successful this would become. Due to JR’s marketing efforts, as well as the narrative-driven in the Discord, which tied again into our pre-sell, by creating this mechanism called the Nameless, those who engaged in the Discord helped the community and pushed the project forward were given access to the whitelist.

Moving forward, we’ve been in touch with a number of different companies, brands and people in the space. We are looking to tie those into the universe, real-world and Web 3 space. We’re truly trying to build a brand that encompasses the globe and gets everyone excited about NFTs as well as the brand itself. That’s our focus, as well as completing the roadmap activations. We have merged coming soon. We have Metaverse plans where we purchased our first plot and Cryptovoxels and airdropped users more or less as a side quest.

Some 0n1 Force ones designed by Uaji. We also have a couple of other Cryptovoxels things coming as exciting little additions to the project. That’s not limited to our Metaverse plans. We hope to expand that quite further. Most importantly, I think the comic is probably the most exciting part about this project, especially for me, where we get to see the world truly get built out. This comic will be a token that’s available to holders of 0n1 Force. CROMAGNUS is our artist on that. He is absolutely amazing and has tons of experience in the industry. We’ve now tied in another member of the NFT community and comic community, Josh Blaylock and he will be advising on putting the comic together in an outstanding way.

Additionally, we interact with our community every day. I take the time to make sure I go in, say hello to everyone, answer questions, concerns. We truly value critique. We truly value the voice of our community. With that said, that is, what I believe, NFT’s best route to success. It’s the voice of the community and carrying the message of not only 0n1 Force but the projects that you are involved with. These are certainly some of the biggest successes I’ve seen in space and where we hope to drive forward 0n1 Force.

Shout out to JR at that point. There was this moment in your community forum, which I joined in Discord, where someone asked about why they couldn’t get more of those sexy shoes for all of their 0n1s. I think, JR, you are very direct in communicating but you did acknowledge them with some empathy about their perspective. It realized how many micro thoughtful decisions are required after the drop to maintain that momentum.

What’s beautiful about our team is that we all have our paths now and we know which direction to go. My community per se is on Twitter. I run Twitter 24/7. It got to a point where before the launch, people thought that there was a Twitter bot and it was the screenshot of it and sent it to my team in the chat. It was like the headquarters. They think that there’s someone liking there and automatically answering their comments.

I’m like, “No, I literally did not sleep. I didn’t do anything. All I did before pre-job was on Twitter 24/7. This needs to be successful.” That’s why I want to pass the mic to LINK. I get as equally part of the reason as to why this project has been so successful is because of the lore and the community that she’s been able to build inside there. It’s incredible. LINK, do you want to talk about how you’ve been building community inside of Discord?

Build a brand that encompasses the globe. Click To Tweet

Thanks, JR. To be fair, I was a newb at Discord. Once we gather everyone, I am completely a people person when I want to be. That was of utmost importance, like connecting with humans and individuals and having conversations and getting to know them. All of us, as the Avengers as JR likes to call us, gathered and STRAWBERRY had pointed out. He was like, “If you build this out a Discord, you’re going to need to figure it out fast.” I was like, “Okay.” Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I spent countless nights researching everything that I could about Discord. I had no idea what I was doing. I built the Discord out by pure will.

I was like, “We need this.” I began to focus on what the aesthetics were for IMCMPLX’s artwork. That was a lot of nostalgia for me. I absolutely am Weave. I’m Weave at Heart, Pokémon, Legend of Zelda. I’m a gamer. Those were the things that I wanted to play on in the Discord. I slowly was like, “Can we add like a Pokéworld bot in here and have people come in and capture Pokémon? Can we have some radio that plays lo-fi music?” I think creators and artists enjoy for me personally because I can speak from experience. I sometimes don’t have the bandwidth to listen to music that has words. It’s incredibly distracting as someone that’s neurodiverse. I need lo-fi.

Shout out to one of our friends, Will Henshall, who has a whole mobile app dedicated to music.

It’s called Focus@Will. It’s a monthly subscription. It’s all based on neuroscience research and got different styles of music. There’s different concentration and focus types. They got prerecorded loops. It’s not a mix on YouTube. They’re literally music designed to help you focus and concentrate.

I needed that. I was like, “If other people are attracted to this type of artwork for a reason, I feel like maybe people resonate with that.” I put up a 24/7 plot that played lo-fi music that I had to go in and keep checking. To hear from other people from other Discords be like, “So-and-so Discord did this. So-and-so Discord also has a 24/7 bot.” I didn’t realize that innately it kept people in our Discord. We were talking about it, “Can you play Pokémon lo-fi? Can you play Demon Slayer lo-fi?” It hit.

I think that was what I played up to was the nostalgia that everyone was relating to, IMCMPLX’s artwork and building everything out. I think we connected on everything else that those individuals were like, “This reminds me of this game that I used to play as a kid.” I related and connected with everyone that came in on that. Here we are.

Next question, we’ve alluded to ways you’re going above and beyond. I want to ask very specifically how the project goes beyond being a simple work of visual art-making and creating this story that includes people’s emotions.

IMCMPLX, for those that are reading, is our artist at 0n1 Force. When we sat down and I had a chance to almost hear his origin, this project in particular, when the topic came up, he had basically disclosed that he feels that the crypto scene is, in essence somewhat slightly cynical. I think it can tend to have a very cold tone. With NFT projects or NFT PFP projects coming out, it was a place where a lot of projects were popping up out of nowhere.

Maybe some of them didn’t have the emotional aspect of airing at least some life. He wanted to approach this project in that way. He wanted to give these characters emotion, give them feeling, a sense of some type of life that our community could not only see as a piece of artwork but have some relation to it. People come into our Discord and they’re like, “I got one that feels like me. I got one that I connect with.”

I think that’s the most beautiful thing because we have so many assets that play to our individual demographics. We have 0n1s that have hearing aids. We have 0n1s that are looking a little elusive. To me, that made it a warmer approach to a project that at least had some play on people’s emotions. When you get that type of connection, rather than having something that’s like, “Here are all the assets. This is what they look like.” It can tend to seem dry. He did well with that.

They’re talking about the Genie’s Project. It initially didn’t start on the blockchain but then it evolved. Their goal is to be that avatar for folks in any environment within the Metaverse. We’re talking about something here that’s similar in a lot of regards but also different in that there’s this rich backstory that’s already been established here. These connections that happen that you’re describing are happening around something much greater than even the individual piece that they hold. There’s this connection to the collective story and the other holders and characters. Something interesting is happening there. They’re not a lot of projects that have tapped into that yet in a meaningful way. It’s very cool to hear.

One thing too, was that there weren’t many female-oriented projects at the time of release. One thing that IMCMPLX wanted to hit with these characters is to make sure that they had a dodginess look and feel to them where it could be male, female. It doesn’t matter. A lot of these character traits weave in between one another. One thing that we did prior to launch is we called together some of the brightest minds in the NFT space, about fifteen individuals that myself, STRAWBERRY, LINK and a few others trust and think could add a lot of value to the project. What was meant to be an hour-long conversation of us telling them about the project, a focus group per se, turned into about a three-hour-long discussion where we’ve garnered so much valuable information.

NFT 57 | 0N1 Force

0N1 Force: In this world, the emperor suddenly passes away. No one knows why or what happened. But, everyone feels a shift in frequency. This would result in there being only 7,777 hours remaining in this world.

LINK mentioned liking the idea of the hearing aid. That came from a member of Hope Board, who was a huge member of the NFT community. We got a lot of valuable feedback. We even had a trait where we’re like, “Should we put this up there? Should we not?” I’d say about 80% of them were like, “Do not use that trait. That won’t go over well.” We’re like, “We won’t use that trait.”

I think this is something valid information to any project that’s coming out now. Make sure you have a “test group” before talking about your projects. Get some pointers on whatever, maybe because the more eyes you have in a project, the better. We had this focus ton of vision very much almost and it was great to step back out. Before going to the masses, hearing what everyone else had to say about it too. Some advice for any new projects that may be starting. I think you had something to add as well prior.

I wanted to tie into the emotional aspect of all of this. NFTs, for me, personally, are quite emotional in a lot of ways. My profile picture is my forever 0n1. I’m very much attached to this. I love it. Emotionally, it inspires me to want to create more. In fact, I’ve created a little bit of a backstory for the character. It ties itself into my personal life where we do see a lot of people, especially in social media and the NFT space, changing their profile pictures, becoming cats, apes, 0n1, these things.

This ties directly into our story where we have this concept of the shift and that is simply a change in the frequency and the world. I tie this directly into the NFT space in a way that we in ourselves, have shifted from this perception of physical materialism to digital existence. I very much aligned with my 0n1 in a real way. It is attached to my digital persona and these all tie into me as a being.

One of the founders of LUKSO created a term or set of terms we had not heard before, dematerialism, which I thought was interesting. LUKSO has a project called DEMATERIALISED. They definitely were thinking dematerial as well. Is that an accurate description for the emotional component you’re talking about, STRAWBERRY? Are we talking about a dematerial world?

I may not necessarily say dematerialize. While that is a good concept on the outward side, I’ve been thinking this, that Gary Vee had said something along the lines of, “Your digital self is far more in the forefront of the public than your personal life.” You don’t know what I own in my home. However, you can very easily go to my Ethereum wallet and see which NFTs I align with. That could give you some personal insight into me. However, you wouldn’t know what my home life is like because I simply do not share that online. However, I’m willing to share my ape in a suit for Christie’s or participate in Metaverse activities and things like that, utilizing my digital form.

The Christie’s thing in itself, I’m not sure if you were familiar but the apes were suiting up for Christie’s. People were changing their costumes to wear suits. We additionally did that for 0n1 members as well to support the Bored Ape Yacht Club on their way to Christie’s. This ties into that shift where the entire community had a tremendous amount of fun throughout two days, putting on suits, interacting on Twitter, whereas in real life, I’m hard-pressed to put on a suit. Luckily, Ethan here has done the job for us. I was having a blast putting a suit on my ape, 0n1 and sharing that on Twitter and interacting with everyone. That was a lot of fun. I can see that concept expanding a ton, especially if Twitter verifies NFTs. There are so many fun future things.

NFT 57 | 0N1 Force