Doodles: The Pixar of Web3 | Julian Holguin

Transcript

they were developing that um you know computer animated filmmaking technology for years before Toy Story came out Tori's story comes out and then that technology is brought to the world through characters that people love not because they knew how the technology worked or what was underlying that story at the end of the day the tech made Toy Story possible but it but but Toy Story made the adoption of the tech possible and that that I think is the closest parallel to what we're building right now and doodles is going to be our Toy Story this episode of Empire is brought to you by quick node quick node is an end-to-end blockchain development platform that makes building web 3 apps super easy no matter what you want to build you can effortly develop any

application by leveraging their elastic apis go to quicknote.com use codeempire you'll get a free month on their feature back build plan that's right go to quicknode.com you'll get a free month to start playing around you'll hear more about quick node later in the show this episode is brought to you by synthetics the liquidity layer for D5 derivatives with synthetics V3 any protocol can now tap into synthetics liquidity to bootstrap derivatives markets you'll hear more about synthetics later in the show all right everyone welcome back to another episode of Empire we have Julian holgan uh CEO of Doodles joining us on the Pod today Julian how you doing man good I'm good how are you thanks for

having me yeah pumped on this so I was telling you before we hit uh hit the record button here that uh I would say Empire is more of a defy native show a little less uh nft heavy and you know we've had folks in recent episodes uh like the multi-coin guys uh Kyle and Tushar we've had uh Kane from synthetics Rob Lester from compound and we I think we spend a little bit less time focusing on what's going on in nft land but we're coming on the bat I wanted to do this because uh coming off the back of nft NYC went to Doodles event there were a lot of really big Brands there uh got some insight into like what you guys are building both on the collaboration with other brands as well as uh how you guys think about like building your own IP

and heard this word of like Disney tossed around a couple of times and uh I think it would just maybe a helpful starting point here Julian would be because we have more of like a defy native audience um the backstory of Doodles I think would just be helpful from like the the fall 2021 launch through when you joined in May of 2022 and before before we get into the the big broader vision of building a Disney maybe can you just take us back into the last 18 months and and really what's happened with Doodles thus far yeah yeah absolutely so the project launched in October of 2021 and it was launched by three Partners three co-founders Evan Kiest Jordan Castro and Scott Martin also and more

normally known as burnt toast Scott was uh animator illustrator graphic designer just all-around artist um coming into the project and all the IP that you see is literally hand-drawn by Scott you know he did all the original characters Evan and Jordan worked together at Dapper labs they um you know Evan was really more on like the growth marketing and brand kind of voice side Jordan was a product lead so you know they ushered in kind of a couple waves of mainstream nft adoption with things like crypto kitties and uh NBA Top Shot and then the three of them came together to launch Doodles which was another you know

obviously major wave of mainstream adoption when it came to nfts and you know it was kind of strange at the time to see three people that were completely doxxed um you know kind of trying to drive this new uh you know this new nft and um you know an IP concept to Market but um you know they had pretty immediate success and then in the corresponding three months like the project just grew and grew and grew a lot of influencers got on board with it um you know not influencers just in web 3 but in general and um it very much became a household name and I think the one thing that really stood out about the project you know not not only some of the new you know kind of the new strategies that

they implemented like gating the Discord and um you know the you know the whole company was kind of structured as a dow from the very beginning where you know the doodle Bank was established and anybody that owned a doodle got a chance to actually vote on how the funds in the bank were used we can talk more about that later um you know but the art right like generally speaking everyone buddy really thought that the art coming out of this it made them think a little bit a little bit less narrowly about like what was possible from an nft project and they gained a lot of attention in the entertainment industry um you know they were trying to get represented by a lot of people and uh you know they got thrust into this world and I met them pretty early I met them in January and we have just started kind

of a light relationship at that point and I helped you know give them some ideas like you know push them in the you know in a couple different directions on things that they were doing helped them a little bit with their event at South by Southwest and I think when South by hit that was really the big moment for Doodles where people were like okay I really get it now I I truly understand where this brand can go um because the web three space had not actually seen anything like that it was the Doodles World brought to life in um you know in an in real life setting at a non-endemic conference Festival which was South by Southwest um so after that point Doodles you know kind of just ran like you know the

popularity everybody trying to get into the project like it was a really really great moment and it was around that time that we started talking really seriously about me coming on board and looking at Doodles not as much of uh as a Creator you know and somebody that needed to be represented but more about a business and that was you know when Hugo was Raising and you know it was so rare and pixel Vault and all these like big um you know these big Capital checks got injected into these businesses so you know that was a conscious decision at the time like let's actually go let's actually go do this and um you know it took a few months but then I ended up joining in May um and since then it has been a pretty pretty wild ride we've done a lot of behind the scenes infrastructure

foundational building um to set us up for a lot of the product experiences that we're going to be delivering this year um the space has obviously changed really significantly in that time um but it's been it's been a really fantastic learning experience for all of us and and we're very excited about the things that we get to share with everyone this year yeah you guys had so much success with the just the pfps right like the just in terms of the price like the price absolutely skyrocketed why did you guys make this transition from like I mean you could have just continued being like a very successful like pfp project I'd say almost maybe in like the manner of punks but you don't you went the more like um I call it the board AP route which is like building IP Building Technology you

did a big external fundraise of like 50 some million bucks like why go down that route I mean I think that was part of the the vision from the very beginning was that we believed that we and I mean even before we the founders believed that nft technology and the blockchain can usher in a whole new mindset around IP premium IP Global IP brands in general um you know and how people are connected to it and how people are a part of it and we saw our art as you know the the thing that might be the tip of the spear

and bringing that concept to the world we really believed that what what we know how to do from a product and Technology perspective and actually how to bring these solutions to Market and build them internally the art is as strong as any IP in the world it's Dynamic it has the opportunity to be timeless um and and that was kind of that was it like once you know I I always hear the story about um you know Jordan Evan and Scott doing their first phone call um it was a zoom call and uh Scott just started drawing you know based on some of the things that they were talking about and Jordan and Evan were like like we we actually have IP in our hands

this is a this is like completely a different opportunity than we even contemplated when we thought we were going to bring an nft project to life um you know so I'd say that that was kind of the goal from the very beginning it just took several turns of evolution as the space changed yeah so take me into this so you joined them may of 2022 you were were you running billboard I think it was like my understand saying is you would kind of help billboard uh transition from this kind of like Legacy B2B Media Company into this like very friendly consumer brand that you know millions of people watch the Youtube videos and stuff like that and you linked up with them in May of 2022 yeah yeah that's correct so I I have been in media digital media specifically in

entertainment pretty much my entire career I started at billboard in 2012 and it was a really interesting time in media it was a really interesting time in music um when I just to put it in perspective when I started at Billboard music video streaming on YouTube didn't even count towards the Billboard charts like that was something that happened after I joined the company and that's that's pretty significant because like YouTube streaming on the Hot 100 is a really significant driver of that ranking um and that you know think of a time where that wasn't actually the case it was really radio that was dominating the chart um so I got to the company and it was a company that was very challenged

um you know the print magazine disruption was in full force but it didn't disrupt billboard as much because it already got so disrupted When the Music Industry changed with digital becoming so prevalent and uh and dominating the consumption um you know the consumption of music fans so billboard kind of lost a lot of its um you know a lot of its Revenue prior to that and then when the print magazine you know die off started to happen you know and everybody was trying to shift into digital it hit billboard even harder so when I got to the company it was really run by like music industry Executives print magazine Executives people that didn't really have much of a

clue on how to take it to that next level um or or how to change the brand and I'll never forget like the first couple weeks I was there maybe before I started but I looked at their YouTube channel and I saw that they had these music videos with Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran um acoustic in their Studio performing and they were on the same press tour that like or the Press stop list like Saturday Night Live all the late shows like you know the big radio stations billboard actually had a play there and they had these videos that were racking up tens of millions of views on YouTube and it was like

they have the best access to artists in the world as as good as anybody because of their credibility and they're not they don't know what to do with it so there were a couple things that we suggested very early on to kind of change the narrative from hey billboard isn't just a B2B you know music industry trade magazine billboard has an opportunity to be a truly consumer-facing brand I mean the recognition for the brand is global people know what billboard is when you ask them because it's the authority and music rankings so anyway long-winded way of saying we completely changed the direction we started focusing on music bands we launched social content we did consumer ticketed Live Events um we tried to do distribution

Partnerships with technology companies so like how do we create products with Twitter how do we create products with Instagram and YouTube Etc that would help get the you know help increase the audience and through that more people were visiting the charts the website or social accounts in our audience just grew and grew and grew and as such brands because you know billboard monetized mainly through advertising and Licensing its company licensing its brand um you know people started to advertise more because they wanted to reach music fans that were like really desirable gen Z well not gen Z at the time but Millennial music fan um and then we would license the brand of media operators around the world and anyway the point is as the audience grew the the revenue could diversify and we basically you know 10 20x the revenue in

the first six years um it was incredible billboard became you know what it always could have been which was similar to what MTV was in the 90s where if you had a question about music if you had anywhere you wanted to go as a music destination it would be billboard and you'd show up across their channels on social so through that like development of the business and diversifying the revenue that's really how I got into web three um I I started to learn a little bit about NBA Top Shot in 2021 early 2021 and I was like okay that's really interesting they're just monetizing the IP in a new way um and in a way that's like very

technology forward it's this new you know it's this new system that like lets people be I mean what is an NBA Top Shot right like it's a moment people are buying into that moment because they want to feel connected to that they want to collect that and the Billboard charts are kind of similar right they have a you know a new Music ranking every week a new Music ranking every single day the only way that people celebrate those rankings and like achievement on those is screenshotting the chart and putting it on Instagram um you know so you'd get like Drake having three of the you know the top three songs in the Hot 100 one week of his debut album he broke records broke like the Beatles record it was a huge thing and the way he celebrated was

screenshotting it putting it on Instagram grab and then the only way the fan could participate was commenting on that post so it was pretty passive engagement so the idea was like let's build a product where you can actually create a closer bond between the artist and the fan create a digital collectible that the fan can own the artists all of a sudden can track its top collectors and now that fan is actually connected to that moment in time because that collectible commemorates when that thing happened and it was minted on that day um so that was really the idea and we you know I ended up like working with Dapper to consult build you know building a project we you know exceeded a development company to actually bring

the bring the thing to life and then you know through trying to like really get into web3 like I just met a lot of people I started some collaborations like we did a deal with autograph and the weekend for you know him breaking you know the record for number one song of all time with blinding lights I did a collaboration with world of women and somewhere in that journey I met the you know the Doodles team and um you know and that's really kind of like where it took off because my experience in building IP and monetizing IP in new ways but also like bringing you know web 3 into new businesses and like integrating the two like the skill set of you know Jordan Evan Scott myself was completely complimentary and it was very

clear early on based on that we had so that's kind of that's how that all led to it but it was um you know it was a it was a really Incredible Journey and it's a it's been something I've been interested in for a while so so then so that was a maybe take me into the future then because the conversations that I was having at that at the Doodles event last Tuesday was very look there was kind of the Doodles up until summer 2022 and Jordan then Julian joins then you guys raised 54 million in September Pharrell comes on board and it was like all right Doodles is Doodles is here to play and the long-term Vision it sounds like is you guys are building a next Disney which I don't know if you listen to that podcast I sent you about like Disney and the story and stuff like

that but I this this is timed up nicely because I've been reading a lot about Disney and really what you mean when you say you're building a Disney is you are building a world-class IP house so I'd love to get your vision into like how you actually go about kind of achieving that that Vision here yeah yeah absolutely I mean I think to to build any IP house you need a hit first right and and we believe Doodles is going to be our Doodles is already a hit yeah yeah we need I mean I I better a better comp than Disney I think is uh is like Pixar or Nintendo and then one day it kind of builds into a Disney because

Disney at this stage is just a straight up media conglomerate that owns things that people don't even associate with the cartoon characters um you know so so yeah one day Disney but that's like uh that's like a 90-year journey um yeah people in crypto media are often like oh you're building like a Bloomberg I'm like well yeah but like Bloomberg does 10 billion dollars a year and like has 90 margin so yeah we'll get there but it might take a couple years yeah there's just there's these Milestones you know like like I I like the Pixar comp because um you know the company the company was founded on the principle of creating technology that that would ultimately change formats for you know for the consumer so at the end of the day they

were developing that you know computer animated filmmaking technology for years before Toy Story came out Toy Story comes out and then that technology is brought to the world through characters that people love not because they knew how the technology worked or what was underlying that story at the end of the day the tech made Toy Story possible but it but but Toy Story made the adoption of the tech possible and that that I think is the closest parallel to what we're building right now and doodles is going to be our Toy Story But as this grows you know are there more and more opportunities surrounding the Doodles brand and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and then there's an opportunity to bring another IP to the world

um are there Partnerships that we can create with really really big IP operators that might need help coming into web3 because it's a very complicated place and some of the biggest brands in the world have failed pretty terribly um you know working with doodles to consult on some of those things so long as our IP can be developed through the things that they know how to do well that can be a pillar and then the thing that's sitting in between those two pillars of the business is creative like we just acquired a world-class creative studio so we believe that we have all the pieces in place to start to execute not to start to execute but to continue to execute on our vision and really level that up um you know so I think what you're going

to see is like major development of the IP this year reaching new audiences um you know actually getting products out there that are outside the nft ecosystem that the nfts will actually be connected to um and the community will be connected to creating lore that ultimately ties back to product experiences because I think that's such an incredible opportunity that has never existed before like you can test story and IP in completely new ways through nfts um and that's going to be something that we continue to experiment with but yeah I mean at the end of the day what we're trying to build is a world-class IP house that is you know made possible through the implementation of blockchain

community and nft Technology like I think web3 is a strategy and a strategy that is made possible by the blockchain like you can't do all the things that we say we're gonna do without the blockchain so that's that's kind of where we where we come at it from so as a skeptic listening to that what do you mean by that like what exactly can you do with through the blockchain that Disney some other media houses can't do I mean I just I like to kind of point to some real world examples right like people love collecting things you know people collect basketball jerseys people collect you know plushies people collect a lot of different things um and people will pay premiums for

things that have a narrative attached to them people will pay premiums for things that like are attached to different moments in time that Michael Jordan basketball jersey sold for 10 million dollars that Kobe Bryant won seven and a half the problem with all that is that for physical goods and and that collected ecosystem it's actually really difficult to Quant like it's difficult to um corroborate it's difficult to scale it's difficult to authenticate um and and you see like really high profile examples of people getting scammed out of that stuff right like I think there was that famous example of Logan Paul dying uh three and a half million dollar box of first edition Pokemon cards ultimately finding out that they were fake um and the blockchain is provenance

right like the blockchain tracks everything and completely solves that problem so okay sure you can connect the blockchain to physical Goods but really the the interesting thing here is the fact that people already care about digital goods and that trend is only progressing right like you talk to any you know 13 year old or a parent of you know an eight-year-old and you know their kids are buying as much as they can on Roblox they want the new skins in fortnite like digital goods are a thing and that trend is only increasing so if the the problem with the the digital Goods Marketplace and ecosystem right now is that most of them only exist Within These closed environments right so like you buy all this Roblox stuff it only exists there that's the only

identity that you have with it um you know fortnite same thing the blockchain gives you an opportunity to seamlessly bring experiences from place to place to place and potentially Connect into your everyday life therefore fostering this whole new concept of a real world of your out of the assets that you own and your identity associated with those assets because you can use them in many places being built alongside a fictional world of characters that you love and IP that you love and stories that you love and that hasn't really existed before it's mindset shifting technology because if I can take an nft that I own

and I can use that as a character in a gaming environment I can use that to go into a cafe and get a secret menu I can use that to get access to a VIP area of a Music Tour I can use that to get VIP treatment at you know Doodles events I can use that to license character traits or characteristics to the brand to use in their media whether it be music videos or movies right it's also upgradable you know it's part of who you are socially you communicate with all these different people around the world through it you know that sense of identity comes to life in a completely different way than it than it really

ever has therefore making you feel a lot closer to the brand and the actual development of it I I think that's only truly scalable through the blockchain I think the blockchain is the most efficient thing to connect every single touch point of a Brand's ecosystem incredibly scalably Etc yeah yeah can we talk about like who's buying Doodles and when you think about engagement and the I just want to understand like you know the price of Doodles has gone down 90 do you think that that impacts your ability to create culture and a lasting brand when people are focused on the price or do you think that people are not really focused on the price and just love the doodle and don't really care that you

know they're holding back this town 90. yeah I mean I think like our current Community cares and it's not something that we don't pay attention to I certainly don't think it's the definition of a company um I think if that is going to be the definition of a company that's going to be pretty sad for the entire space long term um but what I can say is that as the brand scales and as more people you know become aware of it the the idea that people are not gonna want the you know the kind of ultimate thing in the ecosystem you know which is the original collection um I I don't really subscribe to that

idea and I think the challenge is is we're getting caught a little bit in we're executing long-term Vision preparing ourselves for that eventual people will want to come into this ecosystem and if you can't onboard them in the right way you might lose them forever um and by the way I'm not saying like our approach is the right approach and there's no other approach right like we just believe that that our approach is the right approach it's been a bit controversial um but at the end of the day for Price matters to our core collectors and it matters to web3 as it exists at large today so it's certainly something that we pay attention to but we can't let it we can't let it hurt the long-term

vision and the build of the company um but what we can do is make sure that we're listening to people's feedback and what they actually want which will hopefully turn sentiment and make people like our core goal right now is to make sure like we don't want people to sell their Doodles at all right like we like when things are you know have like you know only a small amount listed and people are actually using them so what we're trying to figure out is like how do you give people more of what they want whether that be more digital Goods access to certain events uh limited access to like you know physical merchandise drops that we're going to do licensing opportunities um you know we we just can't like

completely revamp the doodle back to be completely in service of the community and make sure that our company is aligned um you know with the like incentives are aligned between the company and the holders of the original nfts um you know so so yeah I mean I do think it's a challenge but if we can figure out how to make the people that are here today feel really good about what we're doing while extending the brand into new places no one knew coming in I don't believe is going to be as concerned with the floor price um you know like and I just like a practical example is if we're doing you know a flagship retail experience this summer and you have a bunch of like you know 16 year olds coming into the event

event and not in the event into the store and they're loving the art they're loving the t-shirts they're loving all these different things they're loving the content um I don't know that they're really going to pay attention to floor price until you know until it it won't really matter because they love the brand so much all right quick break from the show there is this kind of overused cliche saying in crypto but it's true bear markets are building and everyone tells you that and everyone knows it what people don't know is that if you're building apps in crypto and building apps in web 3 without using quick node you are building on hard mode so quick note is is this amazing blockchain development platform it reduces costs streamlines the time to

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again synthetics.io forward slash perps you can also hop into the Discord server and reach out to the team directly Julian what do you think of what do you think about the business model behind all of this because so block blockworks launched nfts and they were called burmes and they got you access to permissionless um which is our one of our big conferences and if you own a permit you get access to blockworks research it's also permissionless uh like a lifetime pass but what you start playing around with when you run an nft collection is like hey the business model here is like a little wonky it's kind of like a subscription but you know you don't you can't like launch but like you know some platforms don't support royalties now and then like if

you launch a new collection then you know you're kind of diluting the earlier collection so when I hear you talking about I mean I know you're getting away from the from Disney for a second but like so I love that Vision but then when you think about Disney like they had Mickey Mouse but then they had Pluto and Goofy and and mini and things like that but in nft land if you launch like another collection well the OG Doodles holders are probably going to be like well Julian what are you doing man you're you're diluting the original holder so like when you think about these in-person experiences Partnerships with big Brands like what's the business model of all this yeah I mean there's kind of two tracks that need to connect and One Track is building the value of the original token

the Doodles original collection and how do you build the value of that you make people really want to hold on to it how are you going to make people really want to hold on to it they're going to get things that they want right and I think that the challenge in web 3 right now is that what people want differs from person to person um you know so but but I I don't think it's something that's completely insurmountable what we're going to do is make like it's it's a membership at the end of the day by holding that token and it just happens to be connected to this historic piece of art which is a one of ten thousand you know original burnt toasts of varying levels of Rarity but the membership that comes along with that is very much part of the business model if people want to hold on to these

nfts and there's demand that's being generated around these nfts because you get access to the new apparel drop that we're going to do that's insanely limited edition with a really Global apparel brand um you know that's going to be something that you you get as a holder sometimes you're going to get things that are free sometimes you're just going to get access to things sometimes they're going to be discounts but there's going to be a whole ecosystem of rewards and then as a holder you're also going to get the opportunity to participate in the doodle bank which is a fund that's going to create you know opportunities for creators to use rip for entrepreneurs to use our IP um you know for people that want to bring the Doodles brand uh you know in real life experiences around the entire

world so I'd say like you get access to this entire ecosystem of benefits and rewards just by holding this actual nft and then as we grow the business around that right so think like merchandising think uh you know content development think live experiences kind of everywhere that big-ip companies operate today you know and and all of that business can ultimately trickle down into more and more experiences for the original nft holder that is pretty special and exponential and if we could figure out a way you know that there is you know like the sale of nfts even though it's you know their royalties right now are only point five percent

it's still not like you know it's not immaterial right like there's still there's still a decent amount of Revenue that's generated from that it's about to only go off if price goes up and that spits off a bunch of royalties that's one side of this and then like Doodles IP gets super valuable develop more content brand gets big and you make money in the same way that traditional ipu houses make money which is tickets to events merch clothing movies things like that is that no and that's exactly right and then connecting those two ends of the you know of the experience is something that doesn't really exist today right like you think about you think about where how most people engage with IP today it's you know you go to a movie

you buy the T-shirt maybe you play the video game you watch the content whatever it is but that's it you're basically a passive participant but in the Doodles Community you got access to this membership there's also all these like-minded people around you that you can interact with and be a part of you use the IP almost as your social identity in a way and then you get access to all these real life things like our goal is going to be bringing the world into our universe creatively and from like a strategic standpoint and then bringing our universe to the world in you know in real life formats and the the cool thing is is that there's going to be this real world Dynamic and ecosystem that exists and also this fictional ecosystem that

exists with our characters and the stories and the setting and all that and then they're going to crash into each other at times therefore making our holders truly feel like they're part of our universe like their identity is growing with whoever our Woody is going to be and whoever our Buzz Lightyear is going to be and oftentimes you're going to see the things that these people own in that content you know so if we are successful and doodles does become a household name the holders of the nfts will actually have been part of that whether directly or indirectly from the very beginning and then does that get licensed so like let's say I'm Doodles holder number five five six eight or something and I've got

a cool Rainbow coming down I've got a pink background and you know some some big Brands like Adidas says I love that Doodles I really want to work with that Doodles and they approach you guys or something can they like do they how does that work do they license that doodle from the user and that specific user and holder gets uh gets royalties or how does that how does that work yeah I mean it this is the way where first of all not like very specific example like if Adidas came to us and said they wanted to use a very specific doodle in the collection we would 100 broker that relationship between the holder and Adidas um but think of it more like hey we have our first music video coming out or we have our first show coming out or we're doing our first line of like you know

like truly scaled toys we will approach people in the community to license certain traits or characteristics from the original collection to actually build some of that out it's not going to happen for every single thing that we do but it is a core part of our strategy and actually developing the IP we want the product and the lore to be intrinsically connected and we want the community to be intrinsically connected to the lore so if there's somebody that's rocking their pfp and has been for a really long time and it's really engaged in the community and cares very much about its development that that person will likely have an opportunity to bring their doodle into the fictional

world and get paid for it so there's like representation and identity like let's say you know extrapolate a little bit right like we have uh you know we have a movie coming out and there's millions of people around the world that are looking at that movie if there are like you know a hundred people that got to license things into that movie even if all those millions of people have no idea where those characters came from those hundred people do right and those hundred people are going to feel connected to it in a way that has never existed in fandom in history um and they're going to get paid for it which is pretty special too so that's uh that's kind of how we see you know the two you know IRL and fictional worlds coming together representation identity

IP development all that will you grow the character of development by building your own things in-house or will you acquire other and like could you acquire could you do what uh shoot what's the larva did and go you know Mash together punks and the Apes and start acquiring other nft brands I guess do you do do you build it in-house do you do it externally how do you think about that yeah so I think for us IP development like I'm specifically talking about Doodles right so if Doodles is our Toy Story or our Pokemon um you know you build within that Universe right so everything that we do is going to be within that Universe when we talk about starting new IP it would be a completely different thing running 100 parallel so you know you look at

illumination or Pixar you know like Lightning McQueen and Woody they're not in the same worlds right like the minions and secret life of pets they're not in the same world so that would be like yeah that will be an eventuality like we will probably acquire other IP we will probably build new IP but the core Focus right now is Doodles and we're not going to do any of that stuff until Doodles is legitimately a hit um how how do uh big Brands tie into this like how do the adidases of the world tie in yeah I mean so big Brands um you know they they reach new people right like they drive energy into a community there's things that these big

brands do that our community wants like I kind of look at it very much like the live events that we've done so we operate at South by Southwest we did Art basil last year these are some of the biggest cultural tentpoles in the world um cultural tent poles that maybe a lot of our community did not have a chance to go to let alone like be the most VIP people at the biggest events that there are there um and then we do South by Southwest and our holders get like the best treatment at the entire festival and it and doodles at South by last year like was the event everybody was talking about it was that was that the putting no no that was Art basil so art basil would yeah but a similar thing right so

like not only you know are you kind of going to these events but you also have like the premium ticket in town and it's the VIP ticket at doodle putt um I kind of look at that the same way with these big Brands is you know these big brands are going to create things that you know everybody wants or you know maybe not everybody but a definite subset of our communities will want so can we give them access to these collaborations that are going to be you know kind of looked at on a global scale right how do we partner with global Brands create really cool things with them and then give our community access um that the general public does not have that's that's kind of what we're doing and in turn with that so not only are

you providing value back to your community but you're also extending the reach of your brand and with golden wolf now on board all the content that we create from these Partnerships is the goal of that is going to be to make people fall in love with the brand via the actual content creation so you're kind of hitting both ends of the spectrum on um you know on these Partnerships you're providing value but you're also extending the reach and gaining new new you know new followers new collectors I'm trying to put myself into into your shoes I I imagine your job is pretty tough because you have to balance things that um are like culturally relevant and have are like creatively successful but commercially might not be the most

successful things and there's the story of um of Disney when he was starting out he had like I think it was called laughograph Studios which was like very culturally relevant and like everybody loved it and or there were these like short films that went at the beginning of movies and like it kind of put him on the map but it also lost a ton of money and like bankrupted him so like how do you think about that dichotomy between yeah you could go spend several million bucks and do this like huge cultural event for the Doodles holders but like there's no Revenue that you're generating from that so how do you balance that well we we've pretty materially shifted our focus in that you know the the con the idea is not going to be that we're going to show up every quarter with some crazy show-stopping

event it's going to be that we need to build a business around something that is a little bit more Evergreen so so yes we will do things like southba yes we will do things like art basil again but the core Focus this year is taking a smaller yet very Doodles type of activation to a number of different places around the world this year scaled down but really invest in this Flagship retail experience that we're launching in the summer um where it's there's a business going to be built around that that is not completely reliant on monetizing our community in fact that that is not going to be the goal at all the goal is going to be making sure that the community just has kind of free reign at that um you know at that experience but

building you know like like the whole concept is kind of like Reinventing what a Chuck E cheese might look like today right so like it's people having something to do with their families it's creating really cool merchandise drops it's you know a ticketed experience that is going to bring people into our world in a really material way but you're going to get to leave with something that you created there um and that's going to live for you know at least a year um so we're starting to test the ground like building a business around that um you know these collaborations like yeah we can reward our community and still sell to new people along the way right like some of these big apparel Brands some of these big IP brands that

we're going to be partnering with some of these musicians that we're going to be partnering with they have huge fan bases of audiences that don't real like they'll buy nfts from them but they'll also buy toys from them they'll also Buy apparel from them so there actually is a business in Partnerships and if you can bring some of those new audiences in while creating margin on those Partnerships um you know and you get a chance for them to want you got a chance to like convert them to your brand and then all of a sudden they want the stuff that's wholly owned by you you know that's really how it all starts it's kind of like a snowball yeah um can we talk about the flow deal yeah of course so here's my understanding of it is so you have Doodles like origin the OG Doodles are

basically on eth and then you guys launch Doodles two uh which I'm sure some of this is wrong but you got to correct me doodles too and doodles 2 got launched on Flow um and I think there were some this was like the loudest I've seen your guys's community in terms of like a bit upset about this decision and like didn't really understand the why behind it so maybe if you could just walk us through the the whole flow deal and like the how that worked what went down why you guys made this decision that I think that'd be interesting yeah yeah absolutely so flow is kind of two two angles for why we decided to build this product there and this product was really meant to perpetuate a lot of the stuff that our community loves today right like when it comes to social identity people pick

their doodle and then they Rock their doodle as their pfp it's kind of like the standard thing in in web3 and Nas but even more than that they create derivative artwork on it they actually you know know each other through their pfp our community um you know but oftentimes you kind of have to sacrifice one trait for the next you never have your perfect doodle as much as people say they have their perfect doodle there's always a little thing that they might change so creating a fully customizable doodle a platform where you can create the doodle of your dreams like we really think is going to Foster that I that concept of identity a little bit more especially if it doesn't come with all the same perks that the original collection has so Doodles 2 is really meant to be like uh expression of

yourself that is then also going to be able to give you access to all of the really cool physical drops that we're gonna do um you know all of the Big Brand Partnerships that we're going to execute most of that stuff is actually going to be executed through the Doodles 2 platform and the reason for that is because when we do a partnership with a big apparel brand or a musician or um you know we're a big IP company you need to be able to bring people into the web 3 ecosystem in a pretty frictionless way so they need familiarity and it is and onboarding people into the original collection is not familiar one from a price perspective two from a user experience perspective and three just from the entire web3 ecosystem you know

people are not used to it so you know they'd rather kind of just like shy away but if you can get them into a familiar experience like the Dapper wallet and the onboarding system through the flow blockchain it's actually pretty easy and then once they're in you have an opportunity to educate these people you have an opportunity to bring these people a little bit further as we like to call it down the funnel so Doodles 2 yes it's going to be a character builder it's going to be this awesome like some of the art you know we basically released the Genesis box wearables and the duplicator wearables the character Builders launching very very soon um and you know people are now going to to be able to create the Duel of their dreams there's going to be collaboration so then they're going to be able to use

those collabs in digital wearables on you know on your character builder those digital wearables are going to be linked to physical items that are like really limited edition that people are going to want to get their hands on um and you know the cool thing is is that it's really it kind of lives on its own track where the whole ethereum product ecosystem that we're building um you know it's not just around the original collection it's emanating from the original collection but that is the center of everything that we do Doodles 2 is an extension of our brand that's ultimately gonna you know give people you know kind of a different opportunity within the ecosystem and also give people an easy entry into the ecosystem why flow though I mean from from like

I guess my point of view like flow is about his like Walled Garden like privity kind of blockchain as as you can get so like they've done good you I think UI ux experiences with with top shots and I think they're one I think they're probably the first to introduce like use a credit card to buy an nft but from the kind of like Bottoms Up Community ethos side of things they feel very like not permissionless like kind of closed off um so I'm just I'm curious like why I go with flow there I mean I think a lot of the criticisms that people have about flow are a little outdated um and I would actually encourage people to really understand more about the protocol itself and kind of the path that they're taking towards

decentralization and how decentralized it actually is today um when we when we started concepting the plan um you know we we had a lot of opportunities right like there were people that offered us like 50 million dollars to build on their protocol on Doodles too you've got to tell us who Julian that is not my way but but my point is is like flow was frankly like the lowest um like the the opportunity with flow was very much rooted in how can we actually bring this product to life and it's a product that really you know doesn't exist today and a lot of the technology that we're building is

proprietary technology um you know so the the first of all like the frictionless onboarding experience the composability of the chain what the chain is actually technically capable of doing relative to what we want this product to be long term all of our developers everybody that was involved in concepting the product um it was clear that this was that this was the best place to build it um and frankly like it shouldn't it shouldn't Define our strategy right like just because one product lives on this protocol doesn't mean we're abandoning ethereum and decentralization and

ownership of digital assets like we very much intend to continue to build on that track like we have incredible stuff launching this year um you know it just happened that this was that flow was the best place for this specific product use case gotcha how can I ask how much flow paid for this be I mean they've got to pay something right I I I'm not I'm not gonna get into the the commercial Arrangements all all I'll tell you is like flow like every blockchain has been doing developer grants for people to build on their on their platforms um you know there are a lot of blockchains out there that were paying like really really fat minimum

guarantees to get uh you know to get people on their chain um and and and what we ended up deciding to go forward with was uh was product over everything what um well it's like the bull case here like what do you the end goal for you what would be your measure of success for doodles in in like the next I would say two years next two years yeah like uh brand and characters with heat on them that are growing at a really exponential rate and the community the original nft and our whole digital collectible ecosystem being tied to the majority of those experiences that that is really what

success would look like for me and if people really feel like they're connected to our brand like our core Community does today um I really think you're gonna change the way people think about IP and where they spend their time um yeah if people truly feel like they're part of your Universe um and they are a character in the in the world that is Doodles I really I don't think I think video games and like card games have gotten the closest to that um I think this amplifies that concept even more I think it's mindset shifting technology and strategy when you think about like the price for like you know it's roughly what five like two and

a half e so you know call it five thousand bucks like what's your take on balancing scarcity with abundance in how you build a community and the value that you drive through utility yeah awesome so you want the majority of the utility or at least the best utility to trickle down into the most scarce you know group of people right and and basically what we're saying is is that the top tier memberships our black card right like if you want to put it in kind of you know credit card tiers our black card there's only 10 000 of them and there will only ever be ten thousand of them so no matter how big the brand gets whether it's you know a million people

following from around the world or a billion people following from around the world only ten thousand people will ever have access to this super premium um you know VIP experience and you know there we know that this concept exists in other areas of the world right like there's a secret Club within Disney for people that get that crazy VIP treatment and I mean nobody even knows about it but get the crazy VIP treatment at Disneyland throughout the entire ecosystem like you know there's concierge key for American Airlines their solo house they're Social Club memberships like we know if that if the membership is valuable people will pay a premium for it um and we want that for the original

collection we want we want the utility of the original collection um to come through in a number of different ways some of it being accessed to events some of it being access to new products some of it being you know free things some of it being um you know some of it being like things that people truly want um and if all of that also maps to how we're building our story and how we're building our you know the ecosystem around Doodles um you know we we believe that over time um you know people will value that more and more how do you think about

um attention and getting that in a space where I guess you know when you're a very centralized company like Disney at Inception my understanding like or even Pixar or DreamWorks like there was a instrumental kind of figurehead that drove it forward and you talk about lore and getting the community involved how maybe if you can talk to us about how you plan on getting the community like I guess through ownership you feel part of the Doodles ecosystem and you you know that represents some stake in the project in the ecosystem and whatever comes next but like how do you balance the internal creative team with the community wanting to drive input and

be a part of building this company you know it's sort of this tension between centralization decentralization but also trying to like really be a creative genius which is like a very much a centralized thing I believe or has been historically yeah yeah that's a fantastic question because Scott has been developed burntos has been developing this IP for a long time right like he's dedicated his entire life to his craft and he really believed that Doodles was the way to scale it in a way that you know he he really wanted for himself so the the direction of the creative and the characters and everything like that is all going to be driven by him but what's so cool about

web3 is that you can actually build like web3 IP could be like a complete Anthology where there could be a million different stories that unfold and a number of different universes of characters some are the official ones that are driven by the company by the brand in that centralized manner that you mentioned but some of that is also just the community doing what they do and we actually want to empower that because there might be aspects of that that we want to bring into the vision of the company and actually build it into our roadmap or some of it can just be you know kind of living on its own and anybody that's associated with the Doodles brand if they stumble upon it like might want to take part in that just the same way that people stumble

upon like you know ugc games and Roblox or the stuff you know the Creator Tools in fortnite um so that that is something we certainly want to empower which is why we reimagined the doodle Bank a little bit um because there's basically like four buckets of the doodlebank entrepreneurship building businesses off of rip and content creation are two of the core pillars of it so if you can actually Empower people to build businesses and to build new ecosystems you know with the Doodles IP and you can fund it and if it's a good enough idea or if it's something that we want to align with our roadmap you can right the community council votes on it they're the ones that push it through

that extends the reach of the brand and it also empowers the community because not only did you know not only were they able to use the things that they own and use the IP of the company but it was also funded by the company um same thing with creators right like we have all these fantastic creators ton of great thread writers on on Twitter how do you equip those people with more tools right tools can be equipment tools can be strategic alliances it can be infrastructure it can be a number of different things that come with growing your own brand so if the doodle Bank can actually help fund some of those initiatives you then have this whole world of experiences and content and businesses and events that are being

developed by the community some of that stuff I I mean in a crazy world could get bigger than some of the things that we're creating at Doodles and I think that's what's really special like the idea of like being able to decentralize your content and experience output in partnership with your community is something that we really believe in and it's it's why we've kind of reimagined the doodle back to make it easier to access funds and to make it more aligned with where we're going so the community has like clear hey this this is worth the effort because it's it's really going in a similar Direction um and there's there's just more transparency with the community that way as well you mentioned the uh Doodles can you talk a little bit about that what

that actually means yeah yeah absolutely so the doodle Bank um you know the company was kind of formed around the doodle Bank the doodle bank is basically a community or it was a commute still is a Community Fund treasury um that was funded by secondary sales of the original collection so every time you know doodle traded a percentage of that would go in the doodle Bank the doodle Bank funds would be used in the early stages to scale the team to do events any great ideas that the community had they can tap into the fund and potentially get Capital deployed um and anybody that owned a doodle could vote and um basically like you'd have to put a proposal through it actually get money out of the doodle Bank um but anybody that owned a doodle had a

vote on whether or not that money could get deployed um we reimagined it a little bit to kind of maintain that same Integrity of it being truly a Community Driven fund um now that like Doodles as a team does not need to tap into it to scale its business so this is now really about delivering more value to the original nft so so right now there's over five million dollars in um you know in ethereum in the fund um people can put a proposal through the community council which we're establishing as we speak applications are actually coming in this week um is going to review that proposal work with the Doodles team internally and then we're going to deploy capital for

people to build businesses Creator opportunities events or things that they want to be part of our Rewards program so again like what does the actual nft holder want somebody came up with a great idea on a spaces the other day hey I love if Doodles can partner with like all the concert halls in the world and get a VIP section at every concert um you know every concert for a given year um logistically that will be impossible but that concept is interesting right like can you do a deal with Live Nation or AEG where you do get a VIP booth at you know 100 concerts that literally is global and and doodle holders maybe get to go for free or they get access there whatever it might be does the like do

does the community think that that that is a good use of the doodlebanks funds maybe maybe not but there's a number of those ideas that the community are going to have to drive more value back to actually owning the original Doodles nft along with all the stuff that we're going to be doing as a business to drive value to it as well as well which uh nft project not Doodles do you look up to the most I mean I think a lot of people are doing great work right now like it's um it's a really exciting time and like I I'll answer your question directly in a second but I just it's a really exciting time in the space because I think um you know last year it it was it was a difficult place to navigate

web3 because it was very difficult to see what was real and what wasn't real and I think now you're starting to see product and Partnerships and and Promises actually being delivered um which you know last year it was all kind of just hopes and dreams so obviously like the stuff that Yuga is doing with other side and trying to build you know the next Fortnight or Roblox um you know that that's incredible especially if they can pull that off the stuffazuki is doing is amazing just from like a brand perspective and you know IP development I find that our Journeys are a little similar um you know big fan of what Luca and Pudgies are doing too

um I just think like there's there's a lot of examples like that of of people really trying to use the technology to develop IP in different ways um and I think what's also cool is that every like people are kind of like establishing Lanes right now um and and you're kind of seeing the differences in uh you know in each project and certain things are getting celebrated more than others because it aligns you know more with what exists in the space today I think we're under the um mindset that you know things change really really frequently so the narrative that exists today might not be the narrative that exists in you know three months six months

um but I I mean I mean my blanket statement on that is anybody that's like working their asses off every day in this space completely in public with every single opinion in the world is doing uh is really doing great work like it's I I don't want to say that it's it's not easy because this you know like we're thinking of we're talking about like creating characters and stories and dealing with colors and art and like it it's amazing it's a blessing um you know but it is it is hard to go after you know what all of us are going after you do not have an easy job my friend uh you know I think I do I think I do I think like I we really we really love what we're

doing here I mean like I you can't give people a very like as much as people say build in public build in public it's not quite that simple right because then you're just gonna end up like defaulting on a million promises that you've tried to deliver but at the end of the day like the stuff we're working on like color the world with joy create these characters like put smiles on people's faces like when I used to do events at billboard and you would throw a live event you just saw how people reacted to live music it was it was like the best feeling in the world I really can't wait for people to see some of the stuff that we're doing and how they react to it and yeah you know the cool thing about web theory is you get the feedback immediately both good and bad yeah yeah

uh no no I mean we've we have uh so cat works at block works and big shout out to jkb and like they've done some amazing work and like I've just seen the kind of like Bottoms Up effort from the community of Doodles like really pushing this forward so it's been cool I think on two two like two last questions here one is um when you think about content creation and building IP here do you think about this from a building it for the Gen Z audience for the millennial audience for like an adult audience or do you maybe approach it from from maybe that's the wrong question because something like Spider-Man has content for 10 year olds 20 year olds and 50 year olds alike like how do you think about who your audience is here yeah I love that you Spider-Man I use

that example all the time it's um it's it's any true Timeless IP can adapt to multiple formats can adapt to multiple artistic iterations and Spider-Man I think is the perfect example because you know you have live action you have like into the spider-verse which was a whole nother level of Animation detail you know you have Spidey and His Amazing Friends which might like you know I have a toddler and a five-year-old that are obsessed with that so like it really does span Generations um you know obviously that IP has come a very very long way um but I do think the best IP is um you know is able to be adapted so I think what we're going for is really that um you know that like young Millennial gen Z kind of core audience with the opportunity for the brand to

actually scale down into the children's Lane um but not like Coco melon or Paw Patrol like I don't think we're ever gonna be there I think a better comp would be something more in the line of you know a minions or or a Spider-Man or something um you know so I'd say you're gonna start to see some of that unfold this year um and you know there's going to be a lot of tests right like we acquired a world-class Animation studio so we can start to create more content with you know a lot more alacrity and um and yeah I mean I think um I think that's that's really the goal make people fall in love with your content and um you know you know they're going to want to be a part of it nice and my last question here is something that

we've been talking a lot about just in the in the context of actually uniswap which is um like where value accruals a cruise in crypto so like uniswap they launch their mobile app and like you know you you start to think about like okay well the value accrue here to the unit to the uni token uh and the protocol or does it accrue to the company like uniswap Labs which is building the app and I think I have a similar question for you which is you guys raised I think it was 54 million at a 700 million 700 million dollar post uh from 776 and 10t and some other folks does the value if you guys are successful right does the value accrue here to Doodles equity which got valued at 700 million dollars or does it accrue to like Doodles the token or a little

bit of both maybe just yeah walk me through how you think about that I mean I think if we if we nail our vision it has to accrue to both or we would have failed at least one part of that right like and I really believe that the only way to deliver more and more value to the original token is if the brand can scale and there's more demand around it so for us we kind of see the two things inextricably linked and if um and if the brand gets bigger and bigger and we stay committed to making the original token which we believe is in our best interest and in everybody's best interest

um and we can deliver more and more value and experiences and everything to the original token um you know we see both um both rising over time um but not you know like not in a way not in a way that we're promising things that we can't deliver we want to build an ecosystem that the token holder really cares about right and and if they really care about it and more and more people want that level of uh integration into our world you'd have to imagine that there's going to be more of a market for it just because there's more people that want it yeah truly man good good conversation here we have some tough questions I'm curious if

uh is there anything that we missed or anything that you really wanted to touch on you know you brought up jkb which I think is really it's a really interesting concept because it's it's kind of like it's it's what we're talking about coming to life like if you look at the if you look at the three of them their pfp kind of became synonymous with their place in the Doodles ecosystem and web3 at large and for those that are not familiar it's just you know it's it's three women that um you know met through Doodles they their pfp kind of became a lot of their social identity as as this craze kicked off um and they started doing these weekly Twitter spaces together and their Dynamic together was incredible like

they're hilarious they're you know they're you know they're smart they they really care about the community and the community really cares about them um so we started trying to help like incubate them as a brand a little bit more maybe we can help them grow more audience maybe we can give like I remember when we raised when we did our fundraise we didn't do like a spaces with Forbes or anything like that we did a spaces on J AKB and they literally had like the commentary exclusive from us so we're we're working with them to actually develop their brand a little bit and they feel more connected to the Doodles community and to the Doodles brand than I think they ever have and if we can feed them with like some access and a little funding they actually are

going to be able to bring more women into web3 because they're you know because they're actually you know out there showing that there are a lot of prominent women in this space it's good for the Doodles brand like incentives are aligned they get to do a little bit about of they get to do a lot of what they're passionate about Doodles is aligned with like true Community developing their own you know their own platform um you know and the two things ultimately me and you know I if you went to their like people were calling it The Doodles event at nft NYC and you know that that's really cool because you know we got to help actually sponsor some of that but at the end of the day it was a Community Driven event that they're so linked to us that people thought it was

a Doodles event so like we want to do that more and more and in different formats um and I think that's that whole idea of like you have identity you're growing with the brand and jkb are as big of stars in our universe as hopefully our fictional characters will be one day um and that's the cool thing about the Creator economy and what the blockchain can actually you know bring together you know with that mindset shifting stuff that I've been talking about so anyway I just thought that was a cool example and uh and wanted to give them a little bit of a plug love that love that Julian thank you man this has been great uh we're rooting for you and uh best of luck with everything thanks guys big fans of what you're doing too appreciate the time today thanks Julian [Applause]

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