The “Giant Mistake” Brands & Artists Are Making with NFTs

3 min readOct 25, 2021

by Elizabeth Weil, Managing Partner, Scribble VC

This is #2 of 8 “flash content drops” (knowledge bombs from amazing people, in <3 min) in collaboration with MOMA artist & entrepreneur Paul Budnitz. We cover The 3 Types of Intelligence, the Future of NFTs, the “Creator Brain”, and How to Stoke Risk-Taking. You can follow me on twitter to get them.

(p.s. SUPERPLASTIC IS HIRING! If you want to join a rocketship or know someone who should, Superplastic is hiring a Director of Marketing, a Marketing Manager, and a Paid Media Specialist.)

“The big and often overlooked opportunity is making NFTs a self-sustaining mechanism of the ecosystem that becomes central to your brand. — Paul Budnitz, Founder & CEO, Superplastic

At Superplastic we see NFTs as both digital art, and as a way for our fans to participate and create a community around Superplastic and our animated celebrities Janky, Guggimon, and others.
It’s UGC = User Generated Community!
Rather than just seeing NFTs as products and trying to cash in (which I think is a giant mistake for most artists and brands, and isn’t sustainable) we’ve looked at the community opportunity and built the Jankyverse — where collectors that own our NFTs and tokens get special access to limited edition products, movies, events at our (upcoming) NYC store and other venues, digital art, online discussions, and giveaways. You can check it out on the Superplastic website and on our Discord channel.
We’re also dropping Jank Koinz in November, which are crypto tokens that will be distributed free to NFT holders and that add even more access and fun stuff. The more NFTs you own, the more Janks you get. And a JankBank where we collect Koinz where fans will help figure out how to use these funds for fun stuff.
So the big and often overlooked opportunity is making NFTs a self-sustaining mechanism of the ecosystem that becomes central to your brand.
Ok so how do you take that a step further? All of our NFTs have been designed by our virtual celebrities, and many sold via Christies NYC auction house, making Janky & Guggimon the highest grossing virtual artists of all time!
So now the future you can imagine with NFTs goes to a whole new dimension — and one that is sustainable and scalable, and wildly fun for your audience.
It’s a mistake to insert a new innovation into an old format.
You have to be inventive to make a lasting dent!
The inventive founders are the ones who are going to forego short-term gains for long-term dominance.