Today I will unpack, comment and transcribe an interview of wab.eth the foundooor of @SappySealsNFT by @0xlazy_eth and @NFTaleb from fair.xyz 

We see Wab as someone who spends a lot of time behind the screen tweeting a lot and staying very active in the web3 space. As a founder, it is extremely important to stay relevant in the space. Wab takes a moment to thank the entire community of Sappy Seals but mentions he is grateful for all the connections he has made along the way.

Coming from a poor background in the UK he was heavily interested in and motivated by gaming. Starting first playing GameCube and then moving to the Playstation, constantly aspiring to become a game developer. He goes on further to explain that he enjoys the logic systems of code as it takes very low effort to achieve a reasonable output. Allowing for an easy logical solution to a problem, he then goes on to remind us that coders are lazy and that it is one of their driving forces for solving problems in a logical way that can be reused for future solutions. 

The hosts go on to ask what Wab did before NFT’s as he first discovered crypto in 2021, Wab goes on to talk about a mildly successful trading bot he made as an 18-year-old and a basic multiplayer game with his custom elements. Moving onto education Wab mentioned that he completed his bachelor's in computer science but then chose Sappy Seals over continuing to complete his master's. The hosts go on to joke about every founder that did not complete their studies ie Steve jobs. Wab goes on further to explain that university was much more about the people and the connections you build rather than the educational material. 

Before starting Sappy Seals what were your key learnings from some of the past big NFT mints of 2021? Wab answered the question explaining that he knew the NFT hype would not last forever and it was at that moment he decided to sprint and complete something meaningful and bring value. 

The projects that he took inspiration from were.

24PX Looks a lot like a cool cat rip but has a very interesting meta as the discord grew from almost nothing to a few thousand as the collection quickly exploded to do a quick 100x - Using leaked articles to build up the hype of the anon dev. Coupled with various memes it accelerated the marketing efforts and broke into the mainstream NFT meta. 

Moving on, Sappy Seals was quickly launched without a roadmap, Wab realised almost immediately that simply minting out a 10k pfp NFT collection is not going to be enough and more additional utility needed to be added to the project. Being thrown in the deep end Wab decided to bring his childhood dream back to life and leverage the Sappy Seal branding into developing a studio called Pixl Labs which is the overarching company containing both the metaverse development company Pixlverse and The Sappy Seals Brand.

Memes played a huge part in the promotion of Sappy Seals as a brand. Wab goes on to mention that they would pay a bounty of .05 ETH for the best meme containing a particular theme. This became extremely powerful as they began to post 1 meme every hour for 24 hours a day on Twitter additionally to this they also attributed the original author of each meme. 

Wab adds the question why would you contribute to something if you are not getting something back for your engagement?

We want each Sappy Seal to feel like they are getting something meaningful back from their contribution, everytime a Seal post on Twitter we want to make sure they get 100-200 likes and are pushed to the top of the feed. We needed our own ecosystem, and we needed to create our own audience in return, this allowed every seal an equal opportunity to become an influencer. 

The key learning outcomes from this were persistence and maintaining an optimistic outcome - letting the community become part of the decision-making as they design the memes. Further shaping the outgoing communication with transparency. The community can observe live what is happening in front of their eyes with a constant feedback loop that continues to build hype through anticipation and teasing of future features. 

Wab goes on to mention that he encouraged the leaders of each cluster within the discord to flourish and self-organise as it made it easier to connect to the subgroups. We are always listening to the people and encourage everyone to participate because at the end of the day they are responsible for the success of their own unique IP.

This community partnership further builds up the value of the brand and gives additional life to the ecosystem. The IP ownership allows each of the owners the ability to create their own business - similar to Mcdonald's where you can purchase the rights to open a franchise in a particular area. Wab goes on to mention that equal opportunity simply does not exist anymore and this is a way to of leveraging the existing brand credibility to launch your own brand.

Token proof using BAYC is a fantastic example where it allows particular companies to target the right groups, if you want to have a luxury experience you want to target holders of the biggest blue-chip projects with the deepest pockets. 

Personal growth for founders is extremely important - to be honest, no one knows where they are going - be around - be focused - be honest and stay in touch and follow the people with influencers and are up-and-coming influencers within the space. 

For new creators starting today - How will they navigate the space? Wab advises that the time of 10k NFT pfp’s has almost seen its time. Future founders need to stay relevant with the current meta’s - Is it a free mint? Does it suit the current market conditions? The dynamic of the spaces is constantly evolving like the upcoming new collection of doodles that is about to be released where the collection will be drastically extended. 

Wab: Take your time, come up with a plan, stay relevant to the current meta’s, and maintain a strong structure. Running an NFT project is a lot like running a business but with more transparency and a lot more eyes and weight on the founders. There are perks as particular responsibilities can be delegated to engaged community members. 

The hosts ask how do you build a new web3 community?

First, you need to profile the users you are looking for to onboard into your community. How will you target them, what will you offer them to join but also change their pfp? It will be extremely difficult to carve out and find these people that are willing to swap their pfp.

As a creator in this decentralised space, it is your responsibility to bring people here. There are only enough consumers to go around until the next bull run.

The best way to interact with your superfans is via token-gated discords and Shopify stores. Rather than entirely focusing on building new communities, you need to bridge existing web2 communities. 

Some key points to consider as fans look to NFT projects to invest in they want to see if that creator or project can grow. You need to ask yourself what can I extract that is meaningful - you need to focus on the key points of the collection - What is the difference - Why it is unique - Is the community engaged?. No one wants to buy the top of a project, you want to invest in something that will continue to grow.

As a founder you don’t want to be too emotional, if you are ever in doubt you need to zoom out and refocus on not only your own goals but also the goals you would like to reach with your community. You might know the path and the direction but it is incredibly important to explain the path correctly. 

Wab goes on to say we need to remember our online friends are real friends - we spend so much time with them and have no idea where they live or what they may look like. Wab emphasises - you can understand how a person thinks via the text they write.

What has been your best moment for Sappy Seals

Wab responds by saying the heights of the pumps. When the entire community just got it as the opportunity was there and they didn’t need any additional guidance to take advance of the momentum and hype. Power of iteration?

The hosts congratulate Wab on building one of the most successful cults and ask what is the future of Sappy Seals, where would you like to see the project in the next 5 years.
Wab replies saying Sappy Seals as a community-owned business as each holder has an equal share in the collection. We plan to do more traditional marketing and press releases to further build up our brand, we are very good at gorilla marketing - it takes a particular skill to get it to look good. We want to add merch and toys to the brand. 

The brand Pixl Labs is focused on building technology - Pixelverse is the gaming arm of the company. The single best way to onboard web2 users to web3 is via gamification. 

If you buy a Sappy Seal now you get access to our community, real-life events and our game. Through technological innovations, there is so much to create and explore we are only just beginning. 

The hosts ask how do you reconcile the memes and the games what is your long-term vision? 

Wab: We will eventually get to a point where we will have a lot of attention and people will buy in solely for the technological innovation of the brand. We want a diverse ecosystem, you might not enjoy all of it.

Do you have a dream brand you would like to collaborate with?

Wab: Nike 

The black-and-white contrast of the Sappy Seal works perfectly with the existing branding of Nike.

You must have enough self-confidence in yourself to not see the ceiling and keep raising the bar.

One day we will send Sappy Seals to the moon.