Following the release of Space Doodles, the team began a move towards the physical merchandising space. Where many web3 native brands are still trying to find their way outside of the sometimes confusing NFT marketplaces and Discord groups, Doodles have inked partnerships with massive brands like Shopify and Behr, powering activations at SXSW and around the globe.
Building a web3 native brand: A deep dive into Doodles
When the NFT craze began to take off in the spring of 2021, most people didn’t know that NFTs had been quietly trading for years already. So, most people had never heard of CryptoKitties, a sort of NFT trading card game, and one of the first ‘hit’ NFT projects.
Originally released in November of 2017, CryptoKitties took the tight-knit Ethereum community by storm, becoming one of the most popular NFT projects across that blockchain in 2018 and launching some of the NFT smart contract standards that we use today.
The CryptoKitties team spun out in 2018 to form Dapper Labs, the company behind the very successful NBA Top Shot marketplace that helped spark the 2021 NFT explosion.
One particular CryptoKitties super fan was Jordan Castro, known online as Poopie, the eventual co-founder of Doodles. Castro’s love of CryptoKitties led him to co-create a community tool for CryptoKitties traders that ultimately landed him a job at Dapper Labs on the CryptoKitties team. While working on CryptoKitties, Castro met his eventual co-founder, Evan Kearst.
An idea emerges
By early 2021, Castro and Kearst were outlining ideas for a DAO NFT project, giving the community complete control from the beginning. However, evolving conversations would lead them down a slightly different path.
While working on a consulting job, Kearst met the illustrator and NFT creator, Burnt Toast, aka Scott Martin. Kearst loved the unique style and pastel colors represented in Martin’s work and soon enough, Martin was invited to join as the third Doodles co-founder. Casto said in one interview that it was the addition of Martin that led to the realization that they were trying to build a brand and not just release an NFT project.
With an experienced founding team steeped in NFT culture, work on Doodles begin. The trio partnered with WestCoastNFT to develop a collection of 10,000 NFTs following the popular pfp (profile picture) project framework.
By the summer of 2021, new pfp NFT projects were dropping daily and the market (still relatively small by headcount) was getting saturated quickly. Sales volume for NFTs continued to grow, making the biggest jump in sales between July and August, before starting to decline in September for the next 3 months.
As sales were trending downward, the Doodles team pushed forward in preparing for an October launch. They also made a few choices that could have tanked their project out of the gate, but instead turned out to be instrumental in its success.
A unique approach
The NFT market was packed with derivative projects that lacked originality, but fed off of the hype cycles surrounding other popular projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club. With Doodles, the founders trusted that Martin’s artistic vision and colorful style would stand out against a sea of repetitive profile picture NFTs. And, that it did.
The team also chose to limit its community before launch, opting to close their growing Discord community early to avoid an influx of FOMO and FUD. For readers not spending hours on NFT Twitter, FOMO means “fear of missing out” and FUD means “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. Much of the wild speculation and whiplash-inducing price swings in NFTs stem from these two concepts.
Additionally, the Doodles mint price was set at .123 ETH each. At the time, most NFT projects started below .1 ETH in order to maximize buyers and the potential for a quick sell out. Ether prices were near an all time high, making each NFT roughly $450 before fees. Setting the higher price told the community that the founders valued the work and intended to make Doodles a premium brand within the NFT space. Of course, it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t deliver on their promise.
A sample of Doodles NFTs (Source: doodles.app)
The price didn’t seem to phase the NFT community, perhaps looking for a breath of inspiration in a faltering market. The project quickly sold out, even prompting a ‘gas war’, a spike in blockchain fees based on high demand over a short period of time. In fact, the demand was so high that some buyers paid as much as 10x the NFT price just for the associated fees.
While some buyers may have purchased a Doodle hoping for a quick flip and profit, many were interested in seeing just what kind of brand Doodles could become. For both reasons, the floor price on a Doodle NFT quickly rose to levels ETH prices equivalent to thousands of dollars. At the time of writing, and with lagging crypto prices, the least expensive Doodle NFT on the market is priced at roughly $17,000.
Deep sea doodles easy to create
Select a Country
- Home
- Color & Draw
- Deep Sea Friends Giant Coloring Roll
https://shop.crayola.com/color-and-draw/deep-sea-friends-giant-coloring-roll-042721A000.html
Roll Over Image to Zoom
Description
Get ready to roll out the fun while celebrating oceanic adventures with the Crayola Deep Sea Friends Ocean Animal Coloring Roll! The perfect way to dive into coloring with friends, this coloring page set encourages group coloring as well as individual creativity! It includes 15 perforated sections that are a foot each in length! You can work on a single scene or combine two together for one epic display! This sea animal coloring sheet makes a great gift for fans of oceanic adventures and would be perfect for an under the sea themed birthday party! Ideal for ages 3 & up, it’s a great coloring book alternative for kids!
CRAYOLA COLORING ROLL: 15 Ocean Coloring pages with perforations every foot.
HOURS OF COLORING FUN: Color one scene (17.5 x 60″”)” or put 2 scenes together to make one big scene (35×60″”) that’s perfect for display.
PAIR WITH COLORED PENCILS: Use your favorite coloring supplies with this art set, or pair it with a new set of colored pencils for a bundled gift idea.
COLORING BOOK ALTERNATIVE: Change up the coloring fun with a GIANT coloring sheet.
GIFT FOR KIDS: Makes a great gift for boys and girls, ages 3 & up.
