Re:Envisioning Web3 | Meet the Blokyz Team 🔥

I Fight up to be here I'll tell you that because I spoke to you Jay 101 and let me tell you something these guys are cooking man these guys are cooking but say what's up to my co-host first? What's going on? What's going on? Yeah the room has filled up and looks beautiful. Welcome to remission leftery everyone as we said earlier We are going to be talking about blockies the team the plan the project all of the good stuff So I'm excited. I think this is a great way to start the week Yeah, definitely I mean I've had a lot of calls with different founders throughout the year I was very impressed with them And I got to say that and I'm impressed with their skillset what they come with And they're prepared to like build actually build you know, so You know he had a lot when you talk to people at first or second call so You Jay what's going on today man? How are you and I don't know who's behind the blockies account? Hey, hey, let's visit to be here. I know we spoke I think it was last week or a few days before that It's great to be here. I know we've been trying to do this for some time But I think We had it we had an intense week so I think it's probably the best time to be doing this now because the last few you know 48 to 72 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind I think we really Potsen it and I'm a lot of gratitude for you know everyone to show up and support us the way they have and I am really happy to be here yet Behind the brand account is Monk he is my co founder on blockies. How you doing Monk? It's great to be here. Thanks for having me Great time you're monk. We haven't spoke before but I'm happy you're on and maybe TMA will show up I don't know if it's prayer time or not, but It becomes right he comes by but that's my guy too I always liked how he moved in the space one of the few Alpha callers that in my opinion move differently than everybody else I'm glad you guys got him on a team. He's got a lot of weight in the space and you know like I said he moves He moves really well, so You Jay, I don't know how much you feel comfortable sham But you know one of the things I don't think I think goes underrated is like kind of people's backgrounds and you know where they came from Anything you would be able you know won't to share as far as where you came from before you got into web 3 So happy to I mean I think we have You know backgrounds public on the website to so my background I used to be in consulting used to be a director at the loyal did that for close to a decade most of my Expertise was around helping financial services clients streamline their operations So I did a lot of work with a lot of multinational banks fortune 100 companies In 2021 it's what's coincidental right how I stumbled upon web 3 I was actually working for a time They were building a defy loan protocol based on Norway and I was helping them I mean I had done a lot of work with traditional finance and I found that interesting So I kind of started working with them help them with the blueprint white paper that company is listed now on the novice stock Change under the name of a cardio and they acquired the entity I was working for But this was back in 2021. This was the first time I remember downloading Meta mask Had worked with some people in South Africa would help with some design work. I remember you know Finding a way to fund stable points In that wallet and then I sent it to them And this was over a weekend right and it was done in a few seconds cost me a few cents And that was you know, but It kind of made me reflect at what I was doing at work right because here I'm with banks that are spending 300 million dollars a year on operations When I send money on the Wednesday, I don't know whether it's reached on the Monday. I don't know where it stuck It costs a lot. So I was like hey, there is something really interesting here and Disruptive that will don't probably see so that's what intrigue me and I think in 2021 I quit the Lloyd since then I've been pretty close to the space. I've been an advisor and you know investor In a lot of projects most of the work that we've done I've been involved Around has been on the token side which is when we started building blockies, right? The department is that we could get access to was I mean token companies right we go out and touch with our interim caspa Q coin coin, Jekko most of the top me might be right so because this is this was the ecosystem that I had more better relationships when and it was then you know, I kind of met TMA in April this year and We knew we were an NFT first project because we always wanted to build a very strong cultural foundation And I believe the only way to do that is with NFTs with tokens. It's very hard to do it because it gets very speculative very first and And Token goes up and then goes down 95% and the entire CT or whoever you're working with right has changed right but with NFTs right that cultural Born that the company creates as different people you know, put up them as an PFPs. They become a part of their identity So I knew it was an NFT first brand and we started working with TMA back in April before that I spoke for him for two months And I knew that he was the kind of right guy to kind of bring one board as an advisor and he pretty much opened up the entire and the Peace base for us and then we started working with Papi from quirky is EBC and and then Plino Normies and cybecongs also right so That's been my journey pretty much Monk do you want to weigh in what your background is? I thanks you day so again Both you and I basically studied together so we were wrong way back We did our ambience together He went to consulting route. I also actually went to consulting route. I was a consultant for about five years From there on I joined uber back in 2016-2017 when uber was still a startup I was the issue Pacific head of I was the issue one of the team members in issue Pacific leading trust and safety function Went on to lead the trust and safety function at uber for about two three years in my most latest gig left there as the head of trust and safety And then we started blockies In between ujnai worked together on a bunch of things we created a comics marketplace We had 500 plus comic creators so we had that extensive background with IP building when it comes to comics And some of those comics went on to become live action stuff But we wanted to figure out a way that how do we take it to the next level One of the thing we realized was that the hardest thing to crack was distribution How do you build something where you can you know actually reach people a lot more organically That is where the idea for blockies came into being which is building a designer collectible The beauty of designer collectibles is that you can work with with IPs and co-create stuff and Essentially kind of piggyback on distribution to some extent so let's say we make a We made a blocky for coin get go right so then coin get go boosters coin get go To their users It got got us millions of views when blockies had like thousand forwards. This is last year So the concept of designer collectible made a lot of sense for us and then we started scaling that idea into the overall original blockies So very high level that is the background about myself and the origins for blockies we can go deeper into things Along the conversation. Well, I love that and I couldn't agree more I mean like the the token space, you know I'm sure it's easy to come by a lot of money quick You know, but in my opinion is nowhere near the culture that and if you have you know the longevity of the Distickiness of the culture is is much stronger here. So I'm glad you guys came to this space and Kind of where did your love for IP come from you Jay because like you seem more like a finance guy But where did that creative side come from? It's actually I'm still a finance guy and I start the guy right my love for that comes from my co-founders right and Monk is one of them This guy has noted On me, you know when when we were back doing our MBAs, they used to note with he used to show me one piece Used to read those one piece comics He took me to comic art I think Mon didn't mention that at one point he used to head one of South Asia's biggest anime and manga fan community He also brought you know comic on to India partnered with wisdom media. So he has those roots. I so I've always seen um and lived this You know space be curiously through Monk and I know I mean everybody needs someone who's passionate about building something right and for us at blockies that's My two other co-founders who really understand the space have vision into it and and as a person I trust them completely because I've known them for 10 years And I feel there's a role I can play because I understand web3i have you know different skill sets that can help amplify What they really believe and so that's the honest answer jet We I'm just Someone who really believes in you know what Monk and my co-founder Um believe in an IP is I have the skills to help them amplify what the truth proves and then potential for blockies is I'll say you Jay is under playing himself He he's a genuine collector. I mean I love making IP. I love reading content, lower building, design I work with the art team quite a lot but There are two aspects to this right one is building a creative vision and building the art and building the And that second is the collector vision right so I think user brings a lot of that collector vision to the fold as well beyond his obvious Financial know how and his extensive networking within the space So I think we three founders have very complimentary skill set I would quickly probably introduce sculptor as well because I think we've not talked about him sculptor is the third co-founder He comes with extensive advertising background. He has run one of South Asia's biggest creative agency for the gaming space uh launched Riot Supercell Blizzard a lot of like top tier gaming ibs in South Asia So he has he comes with that extensive background which is what you probably see in some of the animation that you've dropped I don't know how many of you saw the trailer or some of the animation before that but what's checking out We have a very strong in-house creative team That operates in a multi-faceted way ranging from making comics to art assets to full-fledged into an animation And all that is courtesy our third co-founder sculptor I love that man. I love the type of team you guys have after speaking to you Jay and TMA definitely has a hand on the culture here So that that's great. So um what made you kind of decide to do Web 3 as opposed to like web 2 i'm just curious because I think you could easily one web to it this as well I'll take a stab at it and you just feel free to add on to it so And this is like a bigger overall view on collectibles in general If you look at collectibles I do predominantly have 4 categories Everybody is familiar with trading cards be it Pokemon or magic togethering or baseball cards I think everybody is also familiar with licensed collectibles because I think at some point most of us have picked up a Batman Thigree and a Superman Thigree Most people also are aware of franchisey collectibles such as Barbie Hot Wheels Pudgy Which is basically one design and one