APC Interviews Vol 3: Bored Barbers

each getting DEMIT's itself. How about you, Wes? So NFT's with me personally was a little bit of a slow start. I had got into buying tokens before so I bought my first token not being XRP years ago. Devertrated it just kind of bought it and left it. Got into crypto when the pandemic kind of hit and you know, the barbers weren't really allowed to work. I'm not one of these guys that's going to have a bunch of clients come into my house and whatever. So I decided to try something new. Decided to day trade crypto made a good amount of money with that. And then, man, honestly, I was kind of introduced to NFT's from just kind of seeing how crypto Twitter kind of started to evolve and people started showing projects to each other and whatnot. And the first NFT project I ever bought into was a project called MetaManchions. I still hold them. I'm not performing so well at the moment, but it is a long-term play for us. We are all invested as a shop combined in all our NFTs. But through MetaManchions, man, I kind of met different people, you know, that were another project that I'd never heard of. And then you start hearing about the big boys like crypto punks and Borde Piaqua. And you see guys on Twitter like Franklin and all these other guys. And you know, it kind of just opens a whole new world for you. So I officially got into buying NFTs when I minted kilobairs. So I guess that was like almost a year ago. I haven't bought too much since then, but you know, it's fun kind of being involved in different communities and seeing what each community has to offer because it's always something completely different. You never really get the same out of every community, you know, especially these days, especially, you know, everybody has a profile picture on the NFT project these days. So I find that a lot of projects are really trying to venture off and do something new and interesting for their orders. Yeah, for sure. It's an age of utility that PFP stuff just doesn't fly anymore. Evie, how about yourself? How did you get into NFTs? As far as NFTs, man, I'm still pretty new into the space. Honestly, Wiz and chemistry have been teaching me a lot ever since we took on this endeavor at the barbershop with NFTs. I've been into crypto for like, I've knew about crypto for a little while now since probably, I'm sorry guys, since probably like 2013, I want to say, and made little investments in Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, things of that nature. But as far as the NFT side of things, yeah, man, I'm still pretty new grills we're having that conversation at the shop about the style as peas, NFTs, and APC and things of that nature. So through the conversations of, you know, that we've been having in the shop and as I, put it on pop-up, I got you. Sorry, yeah, through the conversations in the shop and stuff and, talking to chemistry and Wiz and stuff, starting to learn a lot more about, you're saying hi, starting to learn a lot more about the space. So yeah. That's adorable. Hi. No, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you're coming into the space. You're still early to be honest with you. Chemistry, welcome. Hey, guys. You're doing a bad man. How are you? Great, thank you. You might as well start you off running. How did you get into NFTs? So the way that I got into NFTs was basically through Wiz. We were both working with on crypto together, and he started to venture off into NFTs and he sparked my interest with it. We kind of knew a little bit about NFT technology and we're into it, but all these projects and stuff is basically through him I've learned. It's been quite the journey and they're exciting. It's still, bro. All right, so this question is kind of a group one. How long have you guys been a team? So collectively, as owners of a shop, this shop was actually taken over from an old owner. It was a barbershop before, so these guys were working here chemistry while in EB. They were working here before. So they've been working together as a team for the last year, I believe. Possibly even longer. I think they took it two years, two years, and I kind of joined the team in January. Okay, okay. Did you know these guys prior to joining on as the team? Yes, I did. As I mentioned, I worked with EB. Oh my first barbershop, like five, six years ago. Chemistry has been one of my best friends for years and years now. We know each other's family, the whole rest of it. Then YL, I've always known of YL because he's chemistry's cousin. But I recently started hanging out with him in January as well. When did you guys acquire the Macy? We got the MAYC shortly after Christmas. The Christmas that just passed. Also, like five months ago, kind of thing. Yeah, super new. When we figure that we're going to do the whole board barbershop, that was around, I want to say, November, October, November. We had those months leading up. Ethereum was kind of dipping a little bit. The Mew and Eight floor was dipping a little bit. We were kind of leaving ourselves room to find options and really find the best ape to represent our brand. We finally found one that we thought would fit. I wrong it because we had a start date right in January. So we kind of needed this ape for January. So thankfully, we ended up finding one that we thought worked perfect shortly after Christmas. That actually segwayed some of the next question. Awesome. What gave you guys the idea to use the IP rights of a Macy for a barbershop? So I remember about a year ago, through crypto Twitter, seeing something called board and hungry. After doing a little bit of research, obviously, you find it's a restaurant. Smashburgers type restaurant. And then their concept was super cool. And this is kind of before, I mean, I could be wrong. I was never part of the ecosystem around this time. But I imagine this is kind of around the time where there wasn't much utility with Borde Piaqa. It was kind of just seen as this valuable project because it was one of the originals. You know what I mean? And it kind of had projects like the other side and whatnot come after. And utility was kind of thought about with it after. But I think what really got my attention is, man, these guys are utilizing IP that's given to them at purchase in real life. I mean, personally, I've never seen that before. I had never even thought of that before. So seeing somebody take the step and do it as well as they did, like, we're having a soft launch, for example. Like, we're kind of doing renovations here and there. And in the summertime, we're going to be official and everything will start. But these guys right off the bat, you know what I mean? The hole inside looked as if you walked into a Smashburgers place in the Borde Piaqa club swamp. You know, it looked like what you would imagine a Smashburgers place to look like that would be a part of that ecosystem. So I thought that was real cool, man. And, you know, chemistry and I were discussing it when I had found it. And we thought it was unreal. So, you know, naturally, our relationship together is throwing ideas back and forth. Whether they're amazing and could have potential to be great. Or if they're just stupid and we're just shooting the shit. But, you know, one of us said, like, man, imagine, you know, we had a barber shop. You know, and we bought it because it was always like a milestone thing with us to trade our way up to an ape. You know, as I imagine a lot of people have projects, you know, I mean, they would love to own one day. So, you know, we kind of thought, man, imagine we, you know, we called a shop like Borde Barbers or something. And it kind of started off as a joke. And, you know, after talking about it more and more and more and discussing the idea of opening a shop and, you know, having it be our first venture together, you know, after kind of doing your due diligence, you realize like, wow, this could actually work. And not only could it work, but if it did work, we would be the only people. As far as I'm concerned, the only people in the world to have a barber shop that's NFT branded. Definitely in Canada, that's a be the first business to actually have an in real life storefront with, you know, that's branded with an NFT. So, you know, it was kind of just the thing where chemistry and I decided, you know, this is a trend in the states. These trends always make their way here and not for nothing, but this is, we believe in NFTs as a whole. I don't think that the way the market is now, you know, chemistry and I have had these discussions before, where the market will shift eventually and NFTs will become what they truly were meant for. But, you know, in the meantime, like, you know, let's try and do everything we can with it. So, the more people that can get introduced to this industry, become familiar with it, the better. So, we found that, you know, not only would this appeal to people in the NFT space or in the crypto space, but we get people all the time that come in and ask about it and they've never heard of an NFT. And now they leave and they know what an NFT is. You know what I mean? And not only do they know what an NFT is, but after having, you know, little conversations with us while they get their haircut, they're not like, you know, these old people that think, oh, it's, you know, it's just a scam and it's a phase and it's this and it's that, like, people actually, you know, they get interest from it. They think, wow, like look, look at these guys, you know, trying something new and introducing something completely foreign, you know, to everyday people. Right? So, it was, it was a mixture of both, but that's kind of how board barbers came to life. Bad transitions, well, actually my next question. I know you're in your impency skill, but how has it been working for you? So far, it's been phenomenal. Like I said, we were a barber shop before we rebranded. So we definitely came into this already having clientele. We're definitely popular in the area we're in still. But I mean, as far as after the rebrand, it's been, it's been mind blowing to see the response from people. We'll have people come in daily, literally daily, every single day and multiple people say, I drive past you every, because we're on like a red, a pretty major intersection in our area. So a lot of people drive by regardless of whether they're going to work or home or whatever the case may be. So a lot of people drive by our shop and we get people all the time that say, oh, my kid can't stop talking about your sign. They can't stop. They mentioned the ape and I don't know what it is. And now they explain it to me and it's cool. And you know what I mean? Like it's people, NFT people passing by will show up. They'll park in front of the shop. They'll take a selfie and they'll post it. You know what I mean? People will come in and just say hello. You know, it's it's almost serving like like a landmark for this industry in Toronto. We have people that come from hours away, just simply to come get a haircut and talk NFTs. So honestly, man, it's been super welcoming from the NFT communities and from you know, regular everyday people. And we're anticipating that after our grand opening, which will happen sometime in the summer, you know, after our marketing campaigns roll out, we are anticipating, you know, pretty much the same response, just on another level. So it's rather that topic just before I forget, you guys might want to think about getting that grand opening to coincide with one of the two NFT events that are happening in Toronto this summer. One in June, I think, and one in September. Yeah, see, that's one thing that I'm not going to lie. Relaxing in a little bit is, you know, keeping up to date with all the all the other NFT events that are happening within the city. Yeah, I feel that. It's I they're just popping off. So end of two Toronto's happening in the first time this year. And then there's another blockchain event that actually attended last year that that's highly spoke at that happened that how is that bar called used to be the docs. I don't remember the color right now. Yeah, yeah, rubble on the owner of that and the thing itself followed me the other day. So I'm not going to lie, man, I'm kind of hoping I get a DM one of these days saying, you know, you guys want to come by? Because I mean, I check the price of those tickets and they're like 750 bucks. Yeah, they're not cheap. Yeah, but they do it a two for one right now, I think it's because it's like a three day event. Oh, is it? Oh, yeah, it's not just one day. It's a big event. Oh, it's pretty good. Yeah, see.