Sync X Colors — The AMA
Sync X Colors went live just a few days ago, and we’re still stoked about it. People have commented on the uniqueness of the art design, the integration with the Colors NFT project, and how Sync NFTs can be recolored at any time. What we created was a way to unlock the utility of another collection, in a way thus far unheard of in this space.
We’ve written a lot about the Sync X Colors project itself. One thing that we never spoke about much though, was the team and our journey together. From not knowing anybody personally, to self-organizing over Discord and the internet, to creating something unique in the NFT space; none of us initially envisioned that we, a bunch of strangers at first, could achieve this.
While shilling in the Concave Discord general chat one time, a member said we had so much to talk, about that we should do an AMA instead. An AMA is probably overkill, but the idea of introducing the team and some behind-the-scenes stories is rather appealing. So, without further ado…
Who Are You Guys Anyway?
We’re just random guys from the Concave Discord server, who fell in together while self-organizing for the task. It’s time to officially credit our team members and reveal their roles and contributions. All team members had a hand in the conceptualization and design of our product, but each had their own areas of responsibility.
In alphabetical order we have:
b1azer
b1azer is one of our two smart contract specialists, in addition to being somewhat of an all-rounder in the various development areas. He was instrumental in developing our frameworks, organizing our project repo, and doing the final deployments to both testnet and mainnet. Along with other members, he developed and optimized the SVG design for our art.
cryptographer87
You might have seen him being active in the various Concave Discord channels to promote our project. cryptographer87 took up management of the project’s social media aspects and copywriting roles. Twitter activity and Medium articles are credited to him. He also helped the team get organized as the de facto project manager.
heyjan
heyjan has plenty of fans in the German co-op, and he’s been instrumental to the team’s design efforts. Proficient with CSS, he’s helped the team with the initial art design while also playing a role in the early ideation & development work. Promotional images and videos, banners and logos were all his doing, as well as doing a great job designing our front end.
picky
Our go-to guy for all things front end, picky took over most of the front end deployment aspects of the project. He is also something of an all rounder, able to contribute to the development and testing of our smart contract. The linkage between our smart contract and our website user interface was all his doing.
qbg
Our second smart contract specialist, qbg was the one who developed the algorithms for our generative background process and trait distribution. As one of our main SVG designers, he was also responsible for translating those design elements into code, optimizing those elements, and integrating them within solidity. He was also in charge of making sure the contract did not exceed the size limits and took the lead on deploying our proof of concept on Ropsten.
While not an official part of the development team, we also extend a special thanks to CHOX. He was an early and avid supporter of our project and did put forth some ideas and questions for consideration. We’d consider him an honorary member of the team and an engineer too by association.
How Did You Guys Team Up?
It might sound cliché, but our team came together mainly via coincidence. There wasn’t an active effort to recruit certain people or go with our friends. We really are a bunch of strangers that were brought together via a common goal.
We just kept being active in the public engineering discussion, producing ideas and building concepts in public. In the end, many participants stopped being active there. Either they had been recruited to another team, or maybe gave up due to the difficulty and high skills ceiling. Our team members kept at it though, and eventually it was just us left.
By happenstance, those of us left made a solid and well-rounded team. Everyone had areas of expertise in which they were contributing, and everyone made themselves useful. Most of all, everyone just stepped up, took ownership of their respective parts, and performed. Considering that we’re all just a bunch of strangers who met over the internet, this standard of accountability and professionalism is pretty impressive!
How Did You Come Up With Your Ideas?
At the heart of it was the decision to incorporate The Colors NFT collection into our generative process. This seemed to be a key message in the initial engineering brief. Looking at the other projects, perhaps we took it a bit literally. However, sticking to this resulted in a product that is more unique and fresh than what has been released thus far.
Certain aspects were decided on very quickly by the team. We would produce an on-chain generative project instead of a standard IPFS format one. While everyone was doing something with spoons or Pepe, we wanted to stand out. Hence, we chose the concept of Syncing, and made the infinity symbol our art centerpiece.
From there, we iterated through several variations of the basic art design, before voting and settling on the final version. The design of our generative process was the culmination of many discussions and contributions. Throughout the process, everyone had a voice and a stake in the process. While intense, everything was discussed logically and respectfully.
What Were Some Memorable Moments?
There were several:
- Being told to only let Colors holders mint at the start, and pushing back with the idea of introducing extra features for Colors holders instead. We wanted the larger community to get involved, and this was definitely the right decision.
- Presenting our MVP to the Concave team and winning their approval, such that we were told to upsize and add a bit of premium into the price.
- Being told to launch earlier than expected. That was a mad scramble and a huge compression of the timeline.
- The 48 hours before launch. We really had to ramp up everything. Socials engagement and development work were both accelerated, and everyone pulled some major overtime to make it.
How About Your Thoughts On Concave As A Whole?
For all the chaos and speculation in the server, the Concave Discord community is definitely a strong one. Proof: how many projects can get a bunch of people to self-organize their own NFT projects? There’s a deep pool of talent there and a surprising amount of intellectual rigor.
While we do wish that certain things weren’t played so close to the chest, and perhaps think that the gamification can be taken a bit far at times, we remain supportive of the Concave vision and the community that it’s building. We did just launch one of their NFT collections, after all.
We’re definitely very excited for Concave’s launch. Not just because of any WL alpha (though we would be lying if we said it wasn’t a factor), but because we contributed heavily to something great. We’ll wear our engineer role badges proudly!
Any Final Remarks?
Let’s hear it from the dev team themselves:
b1azer:
I’m really glad I stumbled on the Concave message in the Ohm discord. It allowed me to not only launch an innovative NFT project, but more importantly to find a team of like-minded people. It was a challenging journey, but it all ended well. I’d like to thank the Concave team and the people behind their Discord. Looking forward to new horizons with our team!
cryptographer87:
While I volunteered hoping to learn more about being a web3 dev, I came to realize that we couldn’t afford a beginner dragging the team down. Hence, I quickly tried to make myself useful in other ways. I’m happy to have been a part of this, in the capacity that I acted in. I admire the actual devs for the work that they’ve put in, and definitely have gotten to learn from them and the final product.
heyjan:
I recently tried to get more involved with different projects to showcase my skills and get more into web3. Randomly, I joined the Concave Discord very early and got hooked while grinding my way up to Genesis. I met picky & blazer when I helped filter out the culture & meme pictures with Python. Everything was just right and the energy in the Concave Community was something I’ve never experienced before. I would love to keep building with these guys. Thanks to my amazing Team and Concave for the opportunity
picky:
Concave Finance was the first Discord I’ve ever participated in, and what can I say but woah, what an experience! From initially grinding for my Genesis role, all the way to accomplishing a long standing challenge of mine to become involved in web3 development. This was all possible through Concave, where I was able to meet and collaborate with like minded and passionate individuals, who were interested in building and creating. Through this project, I learned even more than I had signed up for and had a lot of fun along the way. The opportunity to work with such a talented team of developers and creators has been incredibly humbling and I am grateful to have been given this opportunity.
qbg:
Wow. I volunteered to learn more about contract development with the ERC-721 standard and the whole NFT space in general, but I feel that I received a whole lot more than that. As someone who has gone from not even owning an NFT, to actually helping develop and successfully launch one, I’ve found the entire process inspiring and exhilarating. It’s been a real sprint from conceptualization to launch, and I have been continually impressed with the professionalism, dedication, enthusiasm, and sheer talent of the entire team. I look forward to, and would certainly be honored by, opportunities to work with the Sync Team again on future projects. If this is the quality of people and skill within the Concave co-op, then all I have left to say is WAGMI!
Last, but not least, to the Concave Finance team and the entire community, we want to say thank you! None of this would have been possible without your support. We hope that everyone enjoys what we’ve produced, and together WAGMI!
What’s Next?
Launching a project like this is NOT easy. There were certainly lessons learnt and things we can work on. Regardless of how it performs though, we are satisfied with the outcome and the experience gained.
We also want to say that we’re not done. The team really enjoyed working together, and it’d be a shame to let it end here. We showed that we can unlock utility from an established NFT collection, via our mint process and the re-color option. This gives us a solid base for working on future innovations like rebasing NFTs, NFT rental services, and other such evolutionary concepts.
This project is completed, but we’re definitely excited for what the future holds. Stay tuned!
