Welcome To WAGMI Beach
WAGMI Beach
Howdy. Welcome to WAGMI Beach. Don’t be scared… the water is warm. We started WAGMI Beach for a simple reason… we believe that the Solana blockchain will bring decentralized technologies to a mass audience, and we think that this will happen when technical innovators and leaders of culture swim together. We’ve spent the last decade working side by side with some of our generation’s greatest artists and creators, and we thought, hmmm I wonder what would happen if we applied our relationships and skills working with creatives to bring the dopest projects to the Solana ecosystem. As the market for digital collectibles becomes more and more crowded, trusted curation is becoming increasingly important… similar to what we have experienced with streaming music over the past decade.
To kick it off, please allow us to introduce the Catalina Whale Mixer.
Catalina Whales
The Catalina Whale Mixer was created for a simple reason… the whales, degens, and big brains of Solana needed a place to hang. Catalina Whales are a special breed…they’re aggressive, passionate, a touch degenerate, with a lust for success. Catalina Whales are the dominant species at WAGMI Beach, meaning status at the top of the food chain… access to the mixer (both IRL and virtual), exclusive mints and airdrops from subsequent WAGMI Beach collections, and many more surprises.
The Mixer
Welcome to the most exclusive gathering of whales in the Western Hemisphere since 1997. This lifestyle is a choice…and we choose you. Hosted at a secret, exotic location where you and your fellow whales can celebrate your bounties over the finer things in life. Through our years of experience working across music and entertainment, we have called in all our favors to create the most epic party the crypto world has ever witnessed… available to be experienced both virtually and IRL. CWM001 will be hosted at an undisclosed West Coast location in 2022.
Beach Life
You can think of WAGMI Beach as your favorite indie record label for collectible tokens. Inexpensive and fast blockchains, like Solana, are lowering the barriers for creatives that wish to publish tokenized art. This democratization of access is empowering a massive new wave of creators to release art on their own terms. The downside to this shift is that collectors are faced with an overwhelming amount of choices, similar to the issues experienced with the rise of music downloads and streaming in the ‘00’s and ‘10’s. Collectors need curators who’s taste they trust.
WAGMI Beach exists to bring our favorite artists to the Solana ecosystem…whether PFP’s, generative art, fine art, limited runs, or something new we haven’t imagined yet. We are focused on uncovering amazing art, and providing artists with the tools to take their work to the next level, utilizing novel Web3 and AI tech to push the boundaries of their creativity. Just as we have in our music careers, we’re focused only on projects that excite us and which have their own unique voice. We’ve turned away more projects than we can count and will continue to do so in order to uphold our high standards.
Our Pod
WAGMI Beach was originally conceptualized by Michael George and Carlo Fox (alongside lifelong business partners Benjamin Willis and Joshua Andriano), shortly after joining forces with dev wizard Arshard Wala. Marketing executive Alec Lykken collaborated with the team to create the world and voice of the Catalina Whales.
George, Fox, Willis, and Joshua Andriano are founders of Wave7, a principal-backed fund and advisory group created to support founders at the intersection of media, culture, and web3. Taking their keen understanding of retail consumer adoption, marketing, and growth hacking as it pertains to artists and applying it to founders building within web3. Wave7 has now made over 25 investments throughout the space including Saber, DefiLand, Chingari, Metalink, Metaplex, and more.
George spent the better part of the last decade working alongside Scooter Braun where he discovered and signed Martin Garrix. Working with Garrix from day one and signing his hit single ‘Animals’ to Republic Records, George’s keen marketing prowess helped elevate Garrix from obscurity to the worldwide number one spot. During his time with Scooter, George also advised for music tech unicorn Splice which has now become ubiquitous with music production, today the majority of the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 are produced using Splice samples.
Fox, Willis, and Andriano founded music management cooperative The Foundation, home to an array of culture-defining artists including KSHMR, The Martinez Brothers, Yuna, and many more. Additionally, the group founded successful independent distributor and record label Independent Co., which has helped hundreds of artists create long-term sustainable careers through alternative, future-forward record deals designed to support the evolving artist of today.
Wala is an award-winning creative director and developer based in Los Angeles. His experience includes designing the first interaction framework for Google TV, helping PlayStation and Xbox product teams understand their users through the creation of personas and user-flows, and building consumer-focused commerce platforms for Honda, HTC, and Target. Wala is a chad and one of us. His love and passion for art are outmatched only by his love for building tools to help artists realize their dreams. His head-down attitude and nothing is impossible ethos has been a perfect fit for the WAGMI Beach team.
Lykken began his career in the music industry at Scooter Braun’s multi-faceted entertainment company working across marketing, brand, and strategic partnerships and eventually artist management — working with artists such as Grammy award-winning Producer of the Year Andrew Watt, Hilary Duff, Lil Dicky, and more. He spent the last 2 years at storied Interscope Records, Universal Music’s largest label imprint, designing, managing, and executing global marketing campaigns for many of pop music’s heavyweights before going full degen and bringing his creative marketing and community-building talents to web3 to dive in on the Catalina Whale Mixer.
What’s Next for WAGMI Beach
After months of building, it’s finally time to mint our first project. But what’s next you ask? We’ve been working behind the scenes in stealth mode on several projects that we are really excited about. While we can’t show much yet, there’s a quick leak of the projects in the pipeline at the end of the Catalina Whale Mixer trailer which you can view here.
Keep an eye out for follow-up articles in the coming days. We’ll be continuing to leak info on Sets & Collecting Strategies, our Diamond Fins Program, Mixer Alpha, and of course, new WAGMI Beach drops.
With Love,
The WAGMI Beach Boys
