Hey guys

A lot of people ask me about crypto and since there’s so much money flowing in the space it becomes attractive for those who look from the other side to try and make some quick cash. I’d preface this with the fact that it’s tricky to actually get traction if you’re not an active community member already. This article outlines something I did several months ago on how I kicked off an NFT project but I didn’t really go beyond just making the NFT - i.e no marketing or growth.

This won’t teach you how to make money or sell your NFT, simply how you could get your tokens live and ready for sale with no experience.

NF-What!?

So some of you may already know what an NFT is but many of you will have no idea. So let’s start with the basics. A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is basically a token on a blockchain that is indivisible, cannot be broken into smaller pieces. Even simpler:

• Blockchain: a new type of database that requires thousands - millions of devices to track changes on this database. So instead of you telling a bank, you want to make a transaction with someone, you tell all these devices. This way for someone to act fraudulent, they don’t just trick one company they have to somehow trick thousands if not millions of devices.

• Token: A digital unit that can represent something. For example, we have tokens that represent property, artwork, access to a product etc.

So when we say NFT, we’re referring to a token that can’t be divided into smaller units. For example, you might have a token that represents a dollar but you can divide that token into cents (fraction of a dollar) but if you want a token that represents an artwork that can only be owned as a whole and not broken down, we have an NFT.

Make sense?

Why should I care?

According to this article by decrypt: “NFT markets are taking off in a big way, with trading volume growing to $342 million in February from just $12 million in December, according to a new report”

Most recently we had the largest NFT sale in history that was set by “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" by Beeple, at Christie's - $69 million.

There is clearly a rise in the demand for NFTs for various reasons and there’s definitely an opportunity for someone looking to make a name in the space. However, it’s easy to spot someone trying to make a quick buck rather than getting into the community and taking part in the space. If you’re trying to make something work in the space, make sure you do like talking to the community and potentially buying NFTs yourself.

Here’s the idea

I had an idea for a new set of crypto-collectibles after seeing Crypto Crawlerz, which is an NFT that looks like the packaged physical collectibles that people buy.

My idea was to create a similar style of collectible but around fantasy weapons. So with that in mind, I got to work.

I did some digging as to how someone could launch their collectible and to my delight, there were several websites that allow you to mint your own NFTs with just a small fee in Ethereum (ETH) (here’s a quick 101 on Ethereum, if you’re unfamiliar)

• Rarible

• Opensea

• Mintable

I personally really liked the things that were produced on Rarible so I went with that one. All I needed to launch the project was a 3D render of the item and a description.

I made a very quick diagram of what I wanted it to look like with the reference images to Crypto Crawlerz. Since my own 3D modelling skills are quite poor I headed to fiver where I contacted a few 3d modellers and asked if they were able to make something similar to crypto crawlerz. Most people will tell you that it’s a little outside of their skill level which is super helpful and you can focus on the freelancers who can do it. In the end, I found a freelancer who was up for the task. Below you can see my Canva mock-up vs the final product by the freelancer.

This is what my brain mocked up in about 5 minutes or so.

I paid the freelancer on Fiverr ~$70 AUD to create the following product with a 6-second rotating video file so I could make a similar NFT to what was on Rarible. Not too shabby for ~$70 and perhaps 10 minutes of work.

After this, I had to deploy on Rarible which is a fairly self-explanatory process. I’m not going to go into how to do this but here is the final product: link.

Building more of the collection

With my contracted freelancer on Fiverr, I was able to create 12 ‘alpha edition’ items and also 2 ‘legendary’ items. They were more exclusive and had a more gold feel which you can see below.

Total Cost Breakdown

Fiverr Costs (in AUD)

• First Design: $70

• 11 more designs: $535

Contract Fees in ETH (I’ve calculated the AUD pricing based on the ETH price at the time)

• Rarible Minting Fees: $80

• Rarible Other Fees: $35

• Opensea Fees (to list my rarible token on opensea): $165

Total out of pocket expenses: $885

Next Steps (I’m giving away all the assets)

I did this on a Sunday afternoon several months ago as a little fling into the NFT space. Every now and then, I might dabble in something to learn about it and try something out with no intention of committing to it. This was fun, but I’m going to retire from this project. Unsure if the NFT market is as hot as it was a few months ago or in 2020 but it’s a cool looking project and worth a little bit of effort.

As a little test to see if this community can start deploying ideas, I’m going to just give this entire thing away (though you may need to pay for the fees to get it all minted again as I can’t give you the crypto wallets). If you want to learn marketing by doing and see if you can get some legs for this NFT project, then all you need to do to enter this particular giveaway is:

1. Be subscribed to the newsletter

2. Reply to this email on how you would make this work from a growth/marketing perspective. Doesn’t need to be wordy.

Feel free to forward this to someone who is looking for something to do on the side. I’ll even throw in a strategy call with the winner to help them kick start this.

That’s it from me this week. I have a few more ideas and experiments I want to share this year so if you’ve been forwarded this email make sure you subscribe.

Thanks for reading! Will be in touch, the next time I feel inspired to write something.Cheers,Ajay