Weeks 9–16: Company Official & Looking Ahead

Why are we doing these articles again?

At Tongue and Sole Lab (TASL) we value transparency and allowing others to learn from our mistakes, which is why we’re writing weekly logs about the process of making our sneaker NFT project.

#BuildingNFTsInPublic

Note: Our first two entries will be high-level summaries of weeks 1–8 and 9–16 of our project as we decided to write these articles very recently. Moving forward we will release these articles more regularly.

Weeks 9–16 (Jan 2022 — Feb 2022)

Successes

• Artist calls. As a team, we recently held multiple Zoom calls with over 10 custom sneaker artists, presenting our pitch deck and roadmap for the entire project. We’ve been fortunate enough to officially partner with three amazingly talented customizers, Ty, Cody and Nate, who are excited to help TASL grow through authentic engagement. We’re ecstatic to have them on board!
• Finalized artwork. With the help of our veteran Shoe Guy, Chandler, we’ve completed all 8 shoe silhouettes. We’ve continued iterating accessories, backgrounds, and displays, as well as different color combinations to create an appealing, cohesive palette that doesn’t clash and is neither too bright nor too dull. We’ve also had to tinker with the percentages that each item shows up in the collection (in other words, rarities). We’ve had to think through questions like: How many shoes should have a display? Should we have all background colors appear the same amount? Which pieces of art “conflict” with each other (we have to let our developer Grant know not to pair certain layers together)?
• It’s official. We’ve registered as Tongue and Sole Lab, LLC and set up a bank account.

Failures/Learnings/Process

• Managing social media as an NFT project. Although some make careers out of social media management in the current job market, as a team of young creators, we’re taking a bootstrapped approach which requires learning what we can ahead of time in order to ensure we don’t make mistakes that others before us have already made. We had the privilege of speaking with Zain Kahn (@heykahn), who generously offered us advice on how to communicate effectively via Twitter. From his insights, we learned how to create substantive, engaging content through regular tweets and threads.
• We have utility now? After months of calls from people in the crypto/NFT space, we’ve heard one consistent message every single time. Make yourself unique. There are thousands of NFT projects being launched every month, how will you stand apart? It’s a frustrating question that we are sure resonates with founders trying to find product market fit. But after many long brainstorming sessions, Chandler and our sneaker customizers finally created something to set us apart. We’ve had to run many calculations and think about every step of its feasibility, but we’re excited to share it with everyone ​​soon…. check out our twitter as we reveal!
• Discord security. So much more goes into a Discord server than we had imagined. There’s a LOT of security measures that need to be taken to prevent bots and scammers from entering servers. Here’s an abridged list of questions we had to ask ourselves throughout the creation of our server: How many channels should we have? How many should be sneaker related vs. general? What kind of authentication do we want? Phone/captcha verification? Both are more secure but might be a hassle for some users. What names should we give each role? How do we onboard Discord newbies? Discord can be overwhelming at first — how will they know what’s going on?

Gratitudes

• DCA. It really helps to see how smart thinkers view Web3 everyday. And even more helpful to get their advice on marketing strategies for launching our collection.
• My Dad. Did you know what an EIN tax ID was at 20 years old? I sure didn’t.
• Drew. All started from a cold LinkedIn message and you’ve gotten on 2 calls with us strangers to offer advice. You’re a great guy!

“Don’t stop when you are tired. Stop when you are done.” — David Goggins

Day after day, we’ve had late nights and long calls. However, we are not tired, but rather invigorated, because we have found ourselves creating something great that we truly believe in.