After Sapphire failed in his NFT business, he was able to come out of the darkness. On the one hand, it was because he had a heavy sense of responsibility and it would be too "troublesome" if he couldn't come out, which would "affect" the people who loved him. On the other hand, Sapphire felt that he had a desire to "prove". The denial of the values in the circle made him determined to start over.
“I will definitely start a business in this industry again and try to succeed again,” Sapphire said.
Choice
"Hey... maybe I should just post it."
Gazing out the window, the founders of the three NFT projects, Sapphire, STARSEED and Lullabby, fell into a long contemplation and finally sighed. It has been 11 months since the STARSEED project was launched. Unlike most NFT projects in the market, he did not launch the project when it was the hottest.
As an NFT project with Azuki and Ether as benchmarks, STARSEED also had the opportunity to squeeze into the first- and second-tier rankings. At the beginning of its establishment, STARSEED obtained the publicity and promotion cooperation of top Alpha communities such as Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, Renga, and Underground. On the first day, the official account gained more than 3,000 followers and more than 10,000 views, and hundreds of users competed for WL (whitelist) in the comment area. Every one to two weeks, STARSEED will publish an illustration or background story in the world view, and each time it will have more than 3,000 likes and more than 250 comments.
“I remember it very clearly. At that time, we did PREMINT (WL issuance platform), and there were at least 30,000 addresses participating. Among them, about 10,000 were robots. Just imagine, more than 10,000 robots want to mint my NFT. What a concept.”
Although it is a small project, the STARSEED team has 15 people at most. Business, front-end, contracts, 2 brands, 4 CMs, cooperation, strategy... and Sapphire also has to take care of planning and operations.
“At first, users would respond enthusiastically, praising the art with ‘Dope Dope’ comments. Whether they knew the project or not, whether they knew the project or not, they all sought opportunities to collaborate… At that time, I really had an obsessive-compulsive disorder attack. I had to clear all the red dots on Twitter one by one, and my fingers would go numb every day from swiping.”
Even though half a year has passed, Sapphire still remembers every detail of that time. At 2:00 on April 13, the STARSEED Discord channel was opened, and a large number of users poured in instantly. The posting speed had to be limited to see what everyone was asking.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and the NFT market went from bad to worse.
In the middle of this year, the crypto market entered a deep bear market. As the asset with the worst liquidity, the NFT market is facing a big drop. The industry leader Yuga Labs has slowed down its product delivery progress. BAYC has fallen back to the price two years ago, down 85% from its historical high. Azuki's second-generation Elementals was questioned for its artistic similarity. All pre-sale funds were withdrawn to the exchange, triggering a crisis of trust in the community, and the price was cut in half on the day of its release. More top blue-chip projects such as CloneX, Doodles, and DeGods also lack innovation and continue to fall.
When the industry leader cannot maintain the wealth effect and the new narrative is far away, the entire market falls into silence. There are fewer and fewer new projects, old projects choose to cut costs and live frugally, and even KOLs begin to switch to GameFi and Socailfi in large numbers.
“Although the market bottomed out in August, the entire industry has been on a recession trend since March. At that time, market participation was very high, and everyone wanted to make a final profit. A large number of projects were aborted, and serious Mint projects either broke the issue price, could not be sold out, or reduced the volume and price. None of the popular projects could succeed.”
In April, STARSEED was at its peak, but projects around it collapsed one after another. There were runaway projects and retail investors who were FOMO everywhere. Everyone was enthusiastically participating and rushing to cut off each other's profits. Sapphire described this as "the last carnival." Disney, 3D puppets, Debao... These well-known projects can make NFT players grit their teeth even without saying their real names.
Sapphire was confused, and he didn't know what to do in this market environment. He couldn't figure out how many members of the community truly loved the STARSEED world he built, and how many were there just to cheat WL and then dump the market.
“In fact, the STARSEED project was originally intended to be a constellation project, about the horoscope, the zodiac... But we don’t know much about astrology, and 12 types are too demanding for the artists, and the story is not grand enough. We have to do our best, benchmark Azuki, and create a grand metaverse. In the end, we redefined StarSeed as a kind of energy and spirit in the universe that can embody and change people’s spirits.”
Whenever Sapphire mentions the worldview of STARSEED, his eyes light up and he talks endlessly. As a former League of Legends anchor and e-sports commentator, Sapphire can tell the stories and emotions behind each hero. It is precisely because he has seen such a deep connection between users and products in the Web2 world that Sapphire envisions using NFT technology and relying on the growth dividend of Web3 to create a new grand brand.
Shattered Dreams
Ideas are just ideas after all. The sluggish NFT market and the bumpy entrepreneurial journey shattered Sapphire's dream.
In February, the NFT market was still very hot. This competitive environment once made Sapphire unconfident and hoped to improve the quality of its products. Even though it had already drawn a set of NFTs, Sapphire still went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Chengdu and hired a chief artist. 1 chief artist, 4 painters, 3 races, 20 1/1s, and pet design... Sapphire once again devoted everything to the entire project, but never thought that this choice would become the straw that broke the camel's back.
The pursuit of artistic perfection extended the battle line to the end of May.
The picture is not finished yet, but the NFT market is dead. Since the beginning of May, there are almost no voices in Discord asking for project cooperation and worldview. What is left is the endless GM. There are not many people in the market, and everyone leaves after getting a white ticket.
“I get annoyed when I see GMs every day. Some are just bots that are just trying to gain points, but more people just want to see if they have obtained WL, and the quickest way to check eligibility is to send a GM message.”
The community is weakening, and so are the teams.
Half a year has passed since the project was launched in early September, and there is still a funding gap. The team's startup capital was originally provided by Sapphire and another artist partner, but now Sapphire's savings have been completely used up, and the hundreds of thousands of yuan borrowed from here and there are still not enough to make up for the shortfall. The salary gradually cannot be paid, and the only thing left is to repeatedly promise the team a share of the profits in the future. But the team members also know that making money is out of their reach.
There were 7,000 people in Discord, and more than 2,500 white tickets were issued, which was the number of potential users of STARSEED at that time. Should we cut off the source of funds and directly throw the defective products into the market to recover the capital cost; or should we be clean and protect the white moonlight in our hearts even if we would rather lose money?
Sapphire chose the latter. "I can't get over it. Those who support the project will be miserable, and we can't give the market an explanation." There was no fierce debate among the team members. They all tacitly chose to admit defeat. Those who wanted to find a job found a job, and those who gave up gave up. No one in the company group said anything. At the end of May, the project was suspended.
But Sapphire was unwilling to give up. "What if?"
Sapphire restarted the project alone, but this time, he chose a sub-brand - "Lullaby Multiverse Club". Lullaby is the pet of the STARSEED natives.
"I've been working on this for half a year and I can't hold it back any longer. I feel so frustrated." Sapphire was thinking, maybe he could make some money from the new project. At that time, each Lullaby WL was priced at 0.0069. As long as he could sell more than 1,000, he would get his money back. He would invest all the remaining money in the project without taking a penny. "I thought very clearly at the time that the team would only get 40%, so that I could pay off my debts and subsidize the salaries of team members. The remaining 60% would be invested in the project, and all royalties would be invested in the project and the community treasury."
Lullaby is priced very low, and Sapphire hopes to slowly operate it, build up the community and popularity, and release it when the popularity recovers. Once the royalties have accumulated to a certain extent, it will restart the first project.
At this moment, the royalty war in the NFT market began.
With the lack of innovation in NFT market models and incremental users, the NFT market realized that it could no longer make money by supporting NFT projects, and began to turn inward and cut the cake in the stock environment. After Blur Market adopted optional royalties and vampire attacks and became the exchange with the largest trading volume, the old NFT market OpenSea stopped implementing the mandatory royalty tool for half a year and joined the optional royalty camp.
This caused Yuga Labs to take the lead in protesting and announced the cancellation of all contract support for OpenSea. Blue chip projects such as Pudgy Penguins also began to try to build independent secondary trading markets.
A speck of dust from the times becomes a mountain when it falls on a person's head.
Blue chip projects can certainly rely on their accumulated funds and brand advantages to slowly explore new development directions, but for entrepreneurs who are just starting out, every slight change in the market is as heavy as a mountain.
“It took only half a year from the announcement to the official implementation of the optional royalty policy by OpenSea. I calculated that even if I collected the royalties for half a year, I would burn through them by simply hosting a few events, leaving me with no money to hire more people. But if there were no royalties, it would be even more terrible.”
OpenSea has Sapphire in a corner.
“OpenSea, which once stood by artists and creators, betrayed us. OpenSea is a traitor.”
Sapphire spent a sleepless night and finally decided to release the product ahead of schedule. I only slept 3 or 4 hours a day and rushed to produce a rough website and smart contracts. This journey of more than half a year has come to a somewhat hasty end.
Darkest
70, 74, 89… The number of Mints was forever fixed at 89. After two days of struggle, Lullaby sold a total of 89.
At 10 pm on August 29, Lullaby started WL pre-sale. This was the most important moment for Sapphire in a year, but things never go as planned. That night, Grayscale Investments announced the launch of the first Bitcoin ETF in the United States. ETH soared 5% that day, breaking through the 1,700 mark. Ethereum gas fees soared from 10 Gwei to 80 Gwei. A Lullaby only cost 10U, while Mint's gas fee was 5 times that.
400, 300, 200... The high gas prices stopped users from moving forward. Sapphire monitored the page views at all times and watched users leave one by one. In the end, the number of Mints that night was locked at more than ten.
"The popularity of the project is over, and no one will buy it anymore." Although Sapphire has lost interest in it now, he was still unwilling to give up. The next morning, the Lullaby official account issued a notice announcing the extension of WL Mint to 24 hours. Sapphire began to shout and talk about it in the Alpha community he had previously cooperated with, including Laser Cat, Underground, and KOL communities... It was useless.
"In the end, we issued about 3,000 blank orders, which was considered over-issuance. But no one bought it, only my friends did. Afterwards, I could only apologize to my friends one by one and ask if they wanted a refund. But my friends all said: No, it’s okay." After the number of Mints was frozen forever, Sapphire posted a long article on WeChat Moments, blaming itself for misjudging the market.
“The price of $10 is really not high. I can only blame myself for being blindly confident and judging that there are users, consumers, and people who support NFT in this market. In fact, this is not the case. If a project cannot make money, people will not buy it.”
Before the launch, market makers and VCs came to Sapphire, hoping to work together to ensure that all the tokens were sold out. But Sapphire rejected them one by one. "Of course I know how to mint quickly. But I don't want to be one of those project owners I hate the most. With a very small supply, market makers hold positions, make the data look good, pull you into FOMO, and then rely on dumping to recover costs." Sapphire smiled bitterly, "Of course, you can also rely on market making to stabilize the price, and then dump it to farmers who brush Blur points."
Although in the darkest moment, Sapphire still yearns for light. Sapphire rejected all these proposals. Because the original intention of the Lullaby project was to create it for those users who love NFT. "There are too many scams in the market. Every new project breaks the issue price and makes people lose money. We want to do a project without scams. If my project is controlled by me, can I not Rug and run it well? It's a naive idea."
After all this, Sapphire’s Twitter profile still has this line:
Always looking forward to the future of NFT
bright
The light appeared in September.
Socialfi projects such as Tip Coin and Friend Tech became popular. Sapphire finished his bills and debts and began to consider using these projects to make money to pay off his debts.
"It's not bad to make money." Sapphire recognized the fact that there were no users, and knew that it had not let anyone down. "If everyone doesn't want this little picture and only cares about making money, why not join them and make money together."
After counting the chips in hand, apart from a few pieces of silver, it seems that there is only an official account with 50,000 followers and a personal account with 10,000 followers. "Can the official account be used to make money?" From the moment the idea came up, Sapphire knew that this idea was feasible.
Thus, the first NFT project that led everyone to make money was born.
"The market is boring and rotten, don't complain. It may restart next year, just have fun." Facing the overwhelming doubts under the official account, Sapphire was calm. In the past year of working on the project, Sapphire has never been so peaceful, because he knows that he doesn't have to be responsible for anyone anymore, and his only goal at this stage is to work hard to make money.
At the end of the first season, Sapphire's two accounts received a total of 19 million points and sold 0.8 ETH. Now, Sapphire has begun to work hard to operate Friend Tech.
As a former project owner, Sapphire is good at empowering Keys holders. Of course, he will also airdrop 10 Lullaby NFTs and a whitelist of STARSEED projects that may be restarted in the future.
In order to carry out overseas NFT projects, Sapphire has been speaking on Twitter through translation software for many years. But now, he has completely let go of the burden, not only giving up English content, but also interacting with Chinese KOLs' tweets, seeking (3, 3).
On Twitter, you rarely see him posting NFT-related content now. But occasionally in the Friend Tech room, you can still feel his love for NFT. He still buys NFT projects he loves, and selects his favorite ones to regularly draw to Key holders to promote activity.
"KPR's collection experience is top-notch even if it's thrown into Web2. The Web3 guys are not worthy!" After making money from Tip Coin, Sapphire bought a floor KPR as his current avatar. "I can understand the project owner of KPR very well. He is really like me, attracted by the NFT bubble and fell into the rabbit hole. He values stories, interactive experiences, and art. Good-looking pictures with good collection experience are enough." When talking about his favorite NFT art and projects, he was beaming with joy again. After sharing, he added seriously, "But if you are a retail investor with a speculative mentality, there is no NFT worth buying."
"I want to draw this, the latest pfp sol chain. Cute, do you like it?" This was Sapphire's interaction with FT holders before going to bed on the night of October 7. In this private space, he was chatting with fans about the prizes for the draw. I don't think what happened this year has affected him.
future
After the darkest moment, Sapphire became free and easy.
"Make money first, then talk about ideals." When asked about his subsequent ideas for the NFT project, Sapphire answered quickly. As an idealistic project owner, he used to live a very twisted life. But now he has become a user, living a pure life and experiencing all these new things.
The work and rest schedule has become regular, and people are no longer anxious. No one needs to fight or take responsibility, and no one needs to repeatedly choose between rules, Ponzi, and conscience, and what kind of money to make.
This change was not easy for him.
As someone without any investment experience or financial background, he has always sneered at the financial attributes of Crypto. "I hate these Ponzi, and I hate it even more when people use gambling to whitewash Ponzi."
Before entering the crypto circle, Sapphire had been working in the e-sports circle. When he was older and wanted to settle down in Shanghai, he found that he had not paid the five social insurances and one housing fund before, and began to think about a new direction for his career. He did odd jobs in many industries until he met a boss of the GameFi project, and then he started to get in touch with Web3.
He described that experience as "torture". There were too many things to do, including community operations, Twitter, and Discord. When Sapphire first came into contact with NFT, he used his salary to study, trade, and look at projects in the market every day. It was not until his boss ruthlessly rejected the cooperation plan with the top project party that he had painstakingly planned for a month that he had the idea of starting a business and chose to resign.
One day after getting in touch with NFT, a planning friend of Sapphire thought NFT was interesting and proposed to Sapphire to do a PFP project. The two hit it off and stayed up late with another artist founder to start planning the plan, designing the story world view, and focusing all their imaginations on the story of STARSEED. During the whole process, they hardly thought about the Ponzi part, but just set a price range for the sale, based on a self-affirming number.
"It's too difficult to raise funds for pure art NFTs. When VCs heard that it was an NFT project, they didn't even want to talk to each other. Games are easy to raise funds, but I know I don't have the ability. I shouldn't rely on such narratives to raise funds for game narratives. I feel like I'm cheating people and it will be very painful." In the current capital market, it is difficult for brand projects based on PFP to raise funds. Although he has been engaged in the e-sports industry for many years and has worked as an anchor, commentator, director and even e-sports education, Sapphire is unwilling to call himself a game practitioner for the sake of financing.
He feels that this entrepreneurial experience has helped him grow a lot.
As the backbone of the team, he shouldered a lot of responsibility and kept the artist partner out of the storm. When talking about another partner, Sapphire's tone always becomes tender. "At the beginning of the business, I always told her that art can be extended in the crypto world and get direct support and rewards. People support art and enjoy creativity. But after a period of entrepreneurship, I no longer communicate with her about anything other than art. She doesn't care what users think, she doesn't want to understand, and thinks they are stupid for buying such ugly pictures. I said, yes, they are stupid, it's not our problem."
After ten years of struggling in the society, Sapphire used to go ALL IN in everything he did, but now he has become more mellow and started to respect the market.
"I can succeed as long as I give my all every time. It's the same with starting a business, leaving no room for error. I am such a person, and it will be the same when I change to another industry. I am complacent." Sapphire said self-deprecatingly. Starting a business once empties all the savings and also carries a lot of debt. For anyone, it is a big test of life. When asked if he could succeed in another NFT project with his current experience, he hesitated.
"It's easy to sell out, but if you want to make a project that connects with users' emotions, makes users feel that the community is valuable, can be held for a long time, and does not pay attention to financial attributes, I don't think you can do it. Even the NFT market cannot accept this project, there are no such Holders." Sapphire's first project STARSEED reached 300 communities, and the second project Lullaby reached hundreds of them, but they did not find such an atmosphere. "Any creators and artists outside the circle, whether they are on Weibo, Xiaohongshu, or Douyin, have content payment and knowledge payment. Crypto only has one kind of payment, which is payment for the expectation of making money. How can we do it?"
But Sapphire will not compromise on the Ponzi project. "If it is related to Ponzi, I don't understand it, so I won't do it. It's really questionable whether these projects can survive without Ponzi."
When it comes to future career planning, Sapphire doesn’t have too many plans. But he won’t reject Web3, because he always likes new things, this rapidly changing industry, and communicating with people. “If I can make money delivering food, I’ll deliver food; if I can make money being a streamer, I’ll be a streamer; if I can make money with Crypto, I’ll play Crypto. I’ll make money to pay off my debts, and then we’ll talk about it later.”
Perhaps when Sapphire makes enough money and pays off its debts, we will be able to see the project owner who loves NFT and his grand STARSEED Universe again.
“We’re proud that we didn’t release an incomplete project while we were broke and broke,” Sapphire said. “We took the loss, got the peace of mind, and left like the wind.”
postscript
At the end of September, Sapphire had a drink with a media friend and then came to me on WeChat to say that he had rejected the interview with that friend.
Because he believes that the project will be successful one day in the future, and this story will become a topic of conversation after dinner.
On the first anniversary of the project, Sapphire wrote a tweet, reviewing the ups and downs of the past entrepreneurial journey. When I asked if he would still accept an interview, he agreed this time.
Later, he also agreed to be interviewed by that media friend.
Although this article cannot become a PR draft when a future project is successful, I sincerely hope that every entrepreneur working in Web3 can stay true to their original aspirations and achieve results.