[Short #60] Steve Aoki and Disney

They're not working together, just 2 topics 😉

Breezyverse check.

Ayooo, we’ve made some progress!

304 last Friday, 309 on Monday, and 323 today! Slow and steady wins the Web3 race…right?

Enough about Chris Brown, let’s go to another celebrity who’s doing things right:

Steve Aoki in Web3

Steve Aoki was a guest in today’s Rug Radio morning show Twitter Spaces. I often listen to this morning show as I work out. I usually write about something different than the topics covered, but today’s conversation with Steve Aoki was timely considering the recent Web3 mishaps from other celebrities.

Some quick hits about Steve Aoki from the Twitter Space:

• Holds 10 Bored Apes and 17 Mutant Apes 

• Down bad like the rest of us, but enjoys the experience and process

• There’s an inside joke in the NFT space that if Steve Aoki buys into a project, it’s a top signal (aka: you should sell because prices will drop). He enjoys that reputation and wants to retain it because it means he’s relevant.

• He’s a collector at heart. He started collecting comics and vinyl records growing up and sneakers at a later point in life. During COVID, fell in love with Pokemon and sports cards.

• Didn’t care about the value of the collectibles, just wanted to complete sets. COVID changed his understanding on the value and he started to focus on high end collectibles.

• Steve Aoki is such a fan of trading cards that he has had special partnerships with Topps, paid $420,000 for a raw (aka unverified) rare Pikachu card, and is a cofounder of Metazoo (a popular up and coming TCG).

• Future plans in Web3 include a partnership with Sandbox to recreate his house in the metaverse and a NFT album with Snoop Dogg through Gala Music. This is in addition to his own project, A0K1VERSE.

Steve Aoki @steveaoki

Who wants to ride the FINAL 🌊 WAVE!! THIS IS IT! It’s out now and the hits keep on coming! Comment if u have gotten any of the other releases @Topps topps.com/2020-topps-x-s…

Snoop Dogg @SnoopDogg

The first two tracks from the forthcoming @steveaoki n Snoop Dogg present Alpha Doggz Da Da EP will premiere this Thursday. One song will be airdropped to Snoop Stashbox token holders and another to A0K1VERSE Passport holders. Full EP Details coming soon.. only on @GoGalaMusic

TLDR: Steve Aoki gets it, and he’s the example for How should a celebrity enter the space?

When we compare this with some of the themes I mentioned in last Friday’s post about the Kevin Hart/Chris Brown NFT failures, it becomes glaringly clear what the ‘right’ approach looks like for now. Pulling the same themes from last week’s post but applying the Steve Aoki lens.

Marketing in Web2 ≠ Marketing in Web3 - Steve Aoki has his own project, but didn’t start with that. He ‘marketed’ his Web3 brand buying NFTs, DJ’ing at events in the space, and being a guest on Twitter Spaces. By the time he launched or partnered with other projects, he was able to reach the right audience to market the product(s).

CELEBRITY/Product/Market fit - Modifying this framework a bit. Even though the celebrity is the product in a sense, Steve Aoki is clearly a great fit for Web3. He’s a collector at heart and respects the craft. He may not have the social following of a Chris Brown or Kevin Hart, but he’s a much better fit.

Misaligned incentives - Steve Aoki’s incentives for being in the space are the same as many of ours, financially and emotionally. He understands and believes this space is a long-term play and relationship, not a cash grab.

Educate > Shill - When Steve Aoki launched the A0K1VERSE, I recall him joining different Twitter Spaces to announce the project. He and his business partners spent the time to share their vision. He put in the reps and respects the space.

I hope celebrities look at how Steve Aoki has used his celebrity to push Web3 forward positively.

And for those celebrities that aren’t willing to put in the work that Aoki has, no worries. But PLEASE 1) work with a qualified team or 2) wait until mass adoption, and then do your normal influencer blurbs.

Disney’s Accelerator Program

There was some buzz in the space about Polygon today.

Degentraland @Degentraland

Polygon stays winning. Latest partnerships: 1. Disney (accelerator program) 2. Reddit (avatar marketplace) 3. Draft Kings (NFT marketplace) 4. Meta (avatar marketplace) 5. Stripe (global payments) Polygon is in a position to capture outsized scalable solutions market share.

Wait, what’s Polygon? C’mon Google, help a homie out.

Pretty good 2 sentence explainer. Let’s leave it at that for simplicity’s sake.

Let’s dig into the Disney point though. I’m partial to this because I’ve used Disney as a hypothetical example several times, and there’s some interesting nuggets to extrapolate. You know TPan loves to peel the layers of that 🧅.

One sec, changing my LinkedIn profile

Anyway, back to Disney and NFTs. I love using Disney as an example because there are too many applications!

Today, Disney announced the 2022 Disney Accelerator Participants. Who are the 6 companies?

What does this mean?

1 Word: Disneyverse.

I am getting ahead of myself with the above prediction, but it’s pretty clear to me. Let’s evaluate the 6 accelerator participants from a thematic POV:

1. Flickplay: Web3, NFTs, real-world location, AR

2. Inworld: Interactive, AI, immersive experience

3. Lockerverse: Web3, unique access/experiences

4. Obsess: E-comm, immersive 3D virtual stores, metaverse

5. Polygon: Blockchain, Web3

6. Red6: AR, headset

So uh…I think we just uncovered Disney’s Web3 roadmap…

If we were to tie this back to the Build, Buy, Partner framework, it’s not clear whether Disney will focus on building vs. buying (or both!) as their strategy solidifies. But having more exposure and relationships with the Web3 ecosystem will prove to be beneficial as they continue to learn and evaluate.

See you tomorrow folks! And a special thank you to Disney because all my hypothetical Disney NFT examples won’t be in vain. 🥹🥹🥹