Original Author: Zen

Original Author: Zen"R"VeeFriends, a well-known NFT project created by GaryVee, a well-known overseas online celebrity, will launch physical plush and plastic toys on October 17, and put them on shelves at Macy's and toy retailer Toys "R" Us. The toys, designed by toy and entertainment start-up Toikido, are based on 10 VeeFriends characters from the VeeFriends series, including peacock, wizard and panda, and will also be available through Macy's and Toys

Available on the Us website and the VeeFriends website.

As a trendsetter in the NFT field today, GaryVeet has launched two series of NFT works and a variety of limited edition NFTs, and is even preparing for the world's first NFT restaurant. GaryVee, who was born in the grass roots, is actually a cross-border expert. He started from selling wine and became popular through long-term content output on the Internet. His growth history and in-depth exploration of the NFT field may inspire latecomers.

Started by selling wine and became famous by using the Internet

GaryVee's original name was Gary Vaynerchuk. When he was three years old, his parents moved from Belarus to Edison, New Jersey. The impoverished family of ten could only live in a single-room apartment. The children of the poor headed home early. It seems that GaryVee, who was born as an entrepreneur, awakened his talent very early. He started a lemonade business at an age when his peers were still playing in the mud, and by the age of six he owned seven lemonade stands. When he was 12, he started a large-scale baseball card business, which is where he really started learning about entrepreneurship, selling $1,000 to $2,000 worth of merchandise every weekend at malls in New Jersey. Through continuous training in the business field, he has learned a lot of business knowledge and some life-long experiences.

GaryVee's father, who immigrated with his family to find the American dream, finally saved enough savings after years of hard work and frugality, and then quit his job as a salesperson in a liquor store to open his own tavern. 14-year-old GaryVee was naturally involved in running the family business outside of school. After working for a while, GaryVee gradually realized that many people would collect wine like baseball cards, and his enthusiasm for this industry became more and more high, and he fell in love with this job. After graduating from college in 1998, GaryVee started working full-time on his father's liquor business. Realizing that the Internet will bring about a revolution and profoundly change people's way of life, he persuaded his father to change the name of the store to Wine Library, and became one of the first companies in the world to engage in wine e-commerce.

Over the next decade, Gary grew Wine Library from a $3 million business to a $60 million business. Among them, in 2006, Gary took a very important step in his life. He launched a series of video programs called Wine Library TV on YouTube, the main content includes wine reviews, tastings and related recommendations. The show went all the way to its 1000th episode in 2011, and Gary became famous and gained a large fan audience. During this period, he devoted almost all of his time to work, gave up material comforts, and used his savings to make angel investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Uber.

In 2009, Gary, who made his fortune selling wine, had made considerable achievements in media, marketing and communication business. He and his younger brother AJ Vaynerchuk founded the digital advertising agency VaynerMedia in this year, following the model of WineLibrary for other enterprises and brands Provide services. Two years later, GaryVee left the wine business that he had cultivated for more than ten years, and gave up the ownership and equity of Wine Library, devoting all his energy to the new business. GaryVee said he spent 13 years building his father's business and, like many immigrant entrepreneurial families, he feels a responsibility to give back for what his parents have done for him.

As VaynerMedia has thrived over the years, the company has built a best-in-class expertise in paid media, strategy, full-service creative, influencer marketing, IoT and voice, e-commerce, personal branding, SME marketing and internal consulting. ability.

GaryVee is passionate about entrepreneurship. In the ensuing years, in addition to exploring verticals along the media industry and launching new video shows, he also co-founded restaurant reservation app Resy and returned to his old ways to start a winery. After the NFT craze hit, Gary transformed into the founder and artist of one of the most successful NFT projects just as he discovered the unlimited potential of the Internet twenty years ago.

NFT trendy

British science fiction writer Douglas Adams once wrote a "Three Laws of Technology": Any technology that I have when I was born is part of the original order of the world; any technology born between the ages of 15 and 35 changes the world A revolutionary product; any technology born after I am 35 years old is a sorcery that violates the laws of nature and will be condemned by God. Of course, this is not a serious objective law, but an irony to the fact that most people become more old-fashioned as they get older and unwilling to accept new things. GaryVee obviously doesn't belong to the stereotyped one. Although he has passed his age, he is still very keen on the innovation and iteration of Internet technology. He has ridden the web2 wave and is now riding the emerging encryption and web3 trends.

Over the past year or so, GaryVee has turned from an NFT collector to a creator, and VeeFriends has become one of the most influential and unique NFT collections on the market. He also made full use of his personal advantages in social media and marketing planning, extended his influence to the entire NFT ecosystem, and is regarded as one of the most important and most vocal figures in the NFT field. And each time his VeeFriends ecosystem continues to expand, his position will continue to be strengthened. As an expert in predicting trends, GaryVee believes that NFT will accompany him for the rest of his life, and VeeFriends will also become a project recorded in history.

On May 11 last year, GaryVee officially launched the first series (Series 1) of VeeFriends NFT. At that time, the PFP NFT project represented by Boring Ape had just begun to take off. VeeFriends Series 1 has a total of 10,255, of which there is a group of 1,242 NFTs called GOO (Gary Originally Owned), which is reserved by GaryVee for his own collection, so only 9,013 NFTs were initially released as part of Series 1. Each NFT in Series 1 is based on one of 268 characters originally hand-drawn by GaryVee, who imbues the characters with his favorite human traits, such as an aspiring alpaca, a responsible ant, and more, with simple line drawings Extensive, and most of them even look like the paintings of children who are beginners in art. But to date, the series has generated around 57,000 ETH (approximately $76 million at the time) in sales through OpenSea, perhaps largely due to the community GaryVee has built around his business passion and ideas, and the various incentives.

By continuously expanding the ecology of the VeeFriends series and giving back benefits to its NFT holders, the VeeFriends series has now expanded to include Mini Drops, Book Games, Series 2 and Iconics. Launched last August, Book Games is a Layer 2 NFT project that grew out of GaryVee's then-new book Twelve and a Half: Harnessing the Emotional Component Necessary to Business Success. In an effort to keep GAS costs as low as possible, Book Games is currently live on Immutable X. GaryVee used Book Games to connect his book with the VeeFriends ecosystem. For every 12 books ordered by users, an NFT will be obtained through airdrops. In the end, the book sold more than 1 million copies in 100 days."Drift"Just two months after Book Games launched, GaryVee announced Mini Drops, a limited sub-series of VeeFriends focused on collaboration, scarcity, and the "cultural vitality" of VeeFriends characters. Spooky Vees is the first NFT in this series. The series contains a total of 31 unique 1/1 works, including Halloween-themed VeeFriends characters. Those who hold Halloween VeeFriend NFT can claim it on a first-come, first-served basis. The Mini Drops collection also includes Gift Goat NFTs. By holding a Gift Goat VeeFriends character, collectors have access to a total of 18 exclusive gift experiences curated by GaryVee and the VeeFriends team. Each pack includes one of 555 physical gifts and an NFT to match the total supply of 555 Gift Goat tokens. To date, Gift Goat holders have received collaborations with Danny Cole (Biological World), Isaac

Collaborative NFTs from Wright ("Where My Vans Go"), Pop Wonder, and more.

After the two sub-series NFTs of Book Games and Mini Drops continued to receive good feedback from the market, GaryVee began the largest expansion of the VeeFriends and VaynerNFT ecosystem so far-in April 2022, VeeFriends Series 2 was officially released. Each NFT in this series will be released at a price of $995. Compared with the previous series, this is already a way for ordinary NFT enthusiasts to join the VeeFriends ecosystem at a lower cost. However, a total of 55,555 NFTs will be minted in different ways.

First, Book Games NFT holders who are randomly selected to be whitelisted on the friend list will be able to mint Series 2 NFTs, with a total supply of 32,000 reserved for them.

Additionally, those who hold VeeFriends Series 1 NFTs will be able to claim Series 2 NFTs, allocating the same total supply as Series 1's total supply of 10255.

Then there is the part of the public sale. Only 10,000 Series 2 NFTs are available for purchase, but this number may change. If Book Games holders do not mint 32,000 NFTs, the rest will be sold on the same day.

Finally, 3,300 NFTs will be exchanged by burning Book Games tokens to participate in the daily lucky draw. There are 15 new characters in this part, and one will be provided every day during the event period. Each character will generate 220 NFTs, and different rarities will be Spend different amounts of tokens. Introduced into the VeeFriends ecosystem.

It is important to note that only the Series 2 NFT will not grant its owner VeeCon access, but will grant the holder other incentives within the VaynerNFT ecosystem. VeeCon is a three-day "super conference" held by GaryVee from May 19th to 22nd this year, and only those with VeeCon NFT tickets can participate. In addition to GaryVee, VeeCon will also feature many of the most influential figures in the NFT field, such as Beeple, Steve Aoki, and Snoop Dogg.

In August of this year, GaryVee launched VeeFriends Iconics and airdropped them to VeeFriends NFT holders. VeeFriends Iconics is a 1200-piece 1/1 NFT collection based on characters from the original VeeFriends and VeeFriends Series 2, all hand-painted by Indonesian artistic digital illustrator Gilong Bogy. Prior to this, GaryVee just announced that he had received a seed round investment from a16z, and said that VeeFriends will use the capital injection to support the future intellectual property construction of 283 VeeFriends characters.

Optimistic about the NFT trend, combined with consumption

After VeeCon 2022, he boldly predicted that NFT and decentralized blockchain technology will be part of the biggest technological innovation in the world. Since their value plummeted after the bear market, NFTs have been criticized by major news outlets as a scam and a speculative asset. GaryVee believes that NFTs are not dead, they are just resting and will rise again soon. NFTs are really interesting for collectibles and artistry, but they are only a small part of the consumer blockchain. Eventually, we'll all be interacting with NFTs as they become our airline tickets, loyalty cards, and more.

Gary is also practicing this way. The hotel service company he founded, VCR Group, launched the Flyfish Club, a private dining club with NFT membership, modeled after the Spanish eating club called txokos. Its membership is sold in the form of NFT, and holders can gain access to FlyFish restaurants and various culinary, cultural and social experiences. According to its website, Flyfish member NFT holders can lease the NFT to others on a monthly basis or resell it; there will be no recurring annual fee. After dining, guests can pay for food and beverages in US dollars. Flyfish Club is the first members-only NFT restaurant and is scheduled to open in early 2023.

"At the moment we are still using plastic QR codes and email confirmation codes for many things, but the blockchain will replace it because it is a better technology, but it will take some time." GaryVee believes that any new technology will There is a learning curve. It is only a matter of time before the widespread application of blockchain technology, and we should focus on communication.

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