We spent pretty much all of 2022 creating our Rasta Beach Club NFT collection. Artwork development started in January-ish and the collection minted out in December. Along the way, we completed a ton of work. We experienced excitement and disappointment and in the end the sheer joy of completing the project and standing up a community around it. We are not of course sharing how to create a commercially successful NFT collection via a successful mint.

Our project was free to mint and we made the decision to go that route as the so-called crypto-winter settled in. Certainly, there have been great and successful projects that were not free, however, from our starting point, we felt that, and were ok with, going the free mint route. Every project of course will need to make the best decisions for themselves and the project owners. No judgment from us on either approach.

We enjoyed working on our project and are excited to have been able to have a successful mint. Our collection is now on the Ethereum blockchain and can be accessed in almost any Ethereum-based marketplace including,

OpenSea — https://opensea.io/collection/rasta-beach-club-nft-collection

CoinBase — https://nft.coinbase.com/collection/ethereum/0xb67342688ca1fc5962172f8c297583b891340e55

Rarible — https://rastabeachclubnft.wlbl.xyz/

The Art Matters

With all the conversations and information around NFTs, I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that art-based NFTs are about the art. What we learned during a year of interactions with those who came across our NFT project, was that the artwork was always the primary pull, point of criticism, or indifference. Either way, the art was always noticed, so invest time and effort in it.

You Need A Team

There are so many aspects to learn when creating an NFT project. If you search for information on how to create and sell NFTs, chances are you will find many articles that tell you the effort-free way to get your NFT project going. While that information is indeed valuable, to really dig into the details and create a flexible collection, you need to dive in and will need a knowledgeable team around you, or minimally in your orbit.

Everyone Has An Opinion

During the year a ton of people shared their opinions. Most of it unsolicited. These included what chain we should use, whether we should free mint or not, how to market, and what influencers to use. The list went on and on. What we eventually realized was that we had to make our own choices and decisions and be happy with them.

Twitter Is NFT Central

This is probably well known, but if you did not know, Twitter is the center of the NFT universe from a community perspective. We would have gotten exactly nowhere with building our community and minting out our collection without Twitter. If you are thinking about an NFT project. The earlier you start on Twitter, the better.

Scammers Abound

We got scammed a few times. More than we would like to admit. In an effort to build our community from the ground up, we trusted some of the wrong people. People who were convincing and open. We met over Zoom with an NFT marketing consultant, signed an agreement, and it was all a scam. We learned some hard lessons about how to protect against bad actors. We got better at it as the year progressed. There are tons of NFT scammers out there. Be diligent.

Build Up Your Platforms

As much as Twitter is the NFT universe. We needed a presence everywhere and used them to max effect. We had our website, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, and TikTok platforms going in an effort to build awareness around our project. We did SEO for our website and project in general. The name of the game was truly awareness as we did not have big Discord communities or prior projects to rely on. We were truly starting from the ground floor and needed all the help these platforms could provide.

Get A Discord Moderator Superstar

While discord is now essentially an open secret in the NFT community. If you are not familiar with how to effectively mod a server, you could actually do more harm than good. Most Discord users are into instant gratification and if your project server cannot provide that, it will end up reflecting poorly on your project. Great Discord moderators know exactly how to mod the community as they are usually steeped in Discord culture and understand the tools and users quite well. Also without effective mods, trolls will win.

Non-Stop Engagement

As soon as your project is up and running from the moment of conception, your primary job is to communicate. You have to share information across all your channels, through influencers, and through partners. You must communicate to create interest and participation. There are so many great projects out there that are competing for attention and hearts and minds. Speak up!

Protect Your Project Name

Once you’ve decided on the name of your project. Register accounts and social networks, register the domain name and create your name on OpenSea or whatever marketplace you will be using. For us, once we were ready to implement our smart contract and set up our collection on OpenSea, we discovered that someone had already registered our collection name on OpenSea. Worse yet, they had already taken our promotional images and used them as part of these fake collections. That was a little upsetting, but OpenSea's support was great and helped with getting the situation resolved. Register everywhere the moment you have settled on a name.

There Are NFT True Believers

We may be in a crypto-winter but NFTs are here to stay. That is down to creators who continue to create and NFT lovers who collect. Along the way, we’ve come across NFT collectors who’ve become fans of our collection and who shared their enthusiasm. If you are creating an NFT collection, remember that there are true NFT lovers who enjoy being a part of projects and who are not simply traders.