In 24 hours, the founder of Panda Dynasty sold nearly 9,000 NFTs for almost 2 million euros. The recipe for its success? He delivers it to the JDN, find out.
Are you one of the users converted to non-fungible tokens? You want to structure the strategy NFT of your company ? The JDN met Gabriel Mamou-Mani, founder of Panda Dynasty, who sold 8,888 NFTs bearing the image of original pandas in September 2021, raising nearly $2 million in the space of 24 hours. He exclusively gives us ten key tips for launching, succeeding and sustaining his NFT collection.
1. Give utility and values to your NFT
According to the founder of Panda Dynasty, the first step to take is to think regarding and define your NFT: its usefulness, its values, the reasons why users will buy it rather than another NFT. It’s regarding bringing it to life even before creating its brand identity. The success of Panda Dynasty has been a “tasty, well-balanced mix of technical, graphic and marketing skills”. To encourage support, the world of pandas has been declined, like a license, in different formats: a comic strip, a treasure hunt that gives consistency and a scenario for the different games. With twenty years of experience in creating various companies in games and marketing mobileGabriel Mamou-Mani knows how to tell a story with original characters while creating an imaginary universe that engages the user.
2. Create your brand
“For me, it was the creative and emotional aspect of the NFT drop (event sale of a collection, editor’s note) that challenged me and made me decide to get started. We went from DeFi entrepreneurs, from finance, artists. This second wave is above all interested in the emotional side, with a whole language and a secret world to discover through Discord”, says the leader. Note here that the communities that follow artists generally meet in Discord groups; it’s an instant messenger just like Whatsapp, Telegram or Signal. Within Discord, communities follow artists who start NFTs.
3. Market your offer
The success of an NFT lies in acquiring traffic with the objective of converting. Media buying therefore plays an essential role in the marketing of the offer. Tweeting is historically a privileged channel in the NFT universe. The more the audience is involved in the development of the content created, the more the engagement rate and the participation allow to boost the tweets: example with this tweet from Panda Dynasty which solicits its community to relay information:
4. Federate
It is crucial to federate its community by creating a powerful link and affinity between users and the NFT. The community network most used for this is Discord where the most active members of most NFT projects communicate. “Discord is a huge party between friends where we engage members through games, polls, quizzes or votes. Each decision taken for the project is the result of a request from the community,” says Gabriel Mamou-Mani.
5. Animate
Once the community is federated, you have to attract users to your Discord: convince them to become a brand ambassador via different techniques such as offering gifts upstream, for example. The challenge is to create emulation in the weeks preceding the drop to maximize conversion on D-Day and obtain the holy grail: a sold out collection (entirely sold).
6. Tell a story
“Beyond the purely artistic aspect, an NFT must tell a story”, explains Gabriel Mamou-Mani. To add depth to the creative universe, one of the first community games launched by Panda Dynasty was a story contest around the Pandas in the collection. The Discord moderators sent the script for a legend around Pandas and each member had to add new ideas to it. The success was there: hundreds of people added characters, new animals or unusual places to these stories. “By bringing together all the ideas we were able to create the comic strip which is today at the origin of our creative universe”, underlines the founder of Panda Dynasty.
7. Co-construction
NFTs are at the heart of the construction of the decentralized web: it is the access for each holder of the NFT to the governance status of the project. Through Discord or Telegram, you have to maintain exchanges with your community since each user has a say in governance, and the path that this common project will take. It is precisely by having a participatory approach with its community that the latter can then relay the launch of a next NFT and become a true ambassador. The launch of an NFT is not just a “one shot” but a starting point for creating business, monetizing a brand, building loyalty and amplifying a community.
8. Engage
“Panda Dynasty is almost organized like a DAO (A “decentralized autonomous organization” works through a set of smart contracts that establish and provide governance rules, editor’s note.). Every week we submit our development ideas to the community, which then has the opportunity to vote. This gives them access rights to the next drops and “rewards”, explains Gabriel Mamou-Mani. “It’s regarding reinventing yourself daily, while immersing your community around new creative projects”, adds the founder of Panda Dynasty. A successful commitment is a collection that lasts.
9. Change your strategy
You have to know how to evolve in your strategy according to user feedback. “The common denominator between BAYC, Sorare, or even Axie Infinity is the construction of the imagination, but the heart of the business is drop,” underlines Gabriel Mamou-Mani. This is the case of Panda Dynasty, which will soon launch many games and new drops to meet the expectations of its community, thus developing its roadmap and its business model. Panda Dynasty has moved from a play-to-earn business model which consists of remunerating players, to a play-to-hold model to encourage keeping its NFT (not reselling it on the secondary market) and thus giving value to the collection.
10. Put creativity at the heart of your business model
“Today, the graphic creation of NFTs has gone from 2D to 3D; they are precise animations, more and more sophisticated 30-second spots/trailers that resemble Pixar productions” adds the founder of Panda Dynasty. “The idea of creating a game studio is to multiply the uses of avatars via interactive user experiences. Why? To continue to engage the community by immersing it in a creative and artistic universe” adds the leader . In the coming months, Panda Dynasty will always go further: launching events in the metaverse and partnerships with game producers are avenues of exploration. You have to constantly reinvent yourself, create, imagine. “Creativity occupies a central place in the sustainability of a collection”, concludes Gabriel Mamou-Mani.
