Who are OctaCats?
OctaCats is a collectible of 8,000 octagon cats fighting in Ethereum promotion. (8k — 8 octagon corners, I’m genius). They are built from a combination of 150+ faces, hats, outfits and accessories with varying rarity. Some of them are MMA related, and true MMA lovers will always find these Easter eggs and understand which fighter they belong to. The main goal is a build a strong community (yes, the community is paramount) of MMA and cats lovers where you can discuss the latest events from the MMA world, share your favorite fighter, and just chat with fans of this sport from different parts of the world. Maybe you will find a new friend here!
Who am I?
Hello, fighters! My name is Roman (https://twitter.com/romerotherock), I’m 25 y/o, I’m from Russia. I’ve been a graphic designer since 2015 (my favorite is to create vintage logos, labels, badges, even fonts!), UX/UI Designer since 2020. I came to the NFT space in March 2021, when the first NFT boom happened. About a month earlier, I became generally interested in cryptocurrency as a means of investment and came into this amazing crypto world. I started my journey by creating single NFTs at the Foundation.app, but I realized that I want to embody my skills by creating my own crypto collection and uniting people with a common idea. Let’s see if it works!
Yes, I am not a big influencer and not a very famous person in the crypto space. With this project, I want to prove that even an ordinary person without enormous resources and costs can create a successful crypto project, adhering to a transparent and honest approach. Only one person helps me in technical part: @MrExtrim09 is a front-end developer, he developed the website and did the web3 for smooth minting experience. Thanks to him! Other points such art creating, art generation, smart-contract development, Twitter and Discord management, website design are Roman’s side (me).
About my approach, basic principles and why it should work
I saw how the crypto collection market growing up when absolutely everything was sold, and also saw when the supply began to exceed the demand, many shitty collections appeared without any idea. I analyzed it and came up with some points for myself that I will adhere to. Let strict adherence to this requirement be the guarantor of my honesty:
— community first. I want to try and build a community first. Yes, I want to use just such a wording, because I am absolutely sure that the community is the core of any project. You can’t create a community around something that doesn’t catch you. I am a huge lover of martial arts and I am also a huge lover of cats. I love it myself, I understand something about it, and I think that the idea of cats-fighters is awesome!
— free mint. As I said, my goal is to create a community, not to make some quick money. I’d rather sacrifice the quick profit early in the project and let the project expand faster. As an additional feature to the free mint, there will be a voluntary checkbox with a donation of 0.02 ether per cat: this is an apt, it will not bring you any benefits. We don’t all like games where donation gives an advantage, right? Also, I really love the concept of Larva Labs, they were giving away punks for free in 2017. Back to basics!
— no roadmap. Sounds strange, bold and off the beaten track? Maybe even intimidating? I’ll try to convince you otherwise. Most roadmaps now are wothless: a huge number of broken promises, or just insignificant points like “10% will be a listing on rarity tools, 25% will be an airdrop.” Who needs it? Let’s try to return to the roots and return the project to its original purpose: just a fun!
— no utility. Just stop, man! You destroy all patterns!
Heh. Let’s think about this. The very fact that I will tell you that this collection will be useful to you means absolutely nothing. I can write a million different reasons, but the only reason you would buy this (99 percent) is to sell it for more and make a profit. The collection will be useful to you anyway: it’s free and your only risk is gas money. If the collection becomes successful (which I sincerely believe), then the cat can be resold on the secondary market. Once again: it’s a fun! Just be part of the community, put it on profile pics and just enjoy! Just keep the cat in your wallet. Suddenly one day OctaCat will make you smile?
— no paid marketing. It’s simple: I just don’t have $50,000 for aggressive marketing. Investing small amounts is useless. Another half of the money spent will go to scammers. Therefore, I decided to take this rather fundamental step: I will not spend a single dollar on marketing. I will not give any scammer the opportunity to earn. Of course, this is another very bold claim. But let this only add zest to cats. We will fight for our place under the sun on the field of crypto collections like real fighters!
— no hype. hype > launch > death
It’s not about us. I want to try a different scenario. I will not make a loud launch. I don’t want to divide the project into life stages (pre-launch/launch/post-launch). Let’s think of the launch of a project as the beginning, not the end. Let it be a long time, but I want to do everything right. I want people to share their cats themselves and the community grows organically. This is a difficult task, but with your help, everything will work out. Thank you in advance for spreading it the world!
— transparent spents / earnings. This point follows a little from the previous one. In Discord you can check full list of spending and earnings related with OctaCats. Let it be a public notebook where I will record every cent spent on the collection (and, accordingly, every cent earned). Even if this collection becomes some guide, some reality show, where you can watch in real time how an ordinary person launches a collection, how much he spends (and his, that is, my goal is to spend as little as necessary)
