How to Create & Launch a Popular NFT Collection

Following the successful launch of Meebits, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Genies Avatars, & VeeFriends, we now have a 2nd generation of new and exciting projects. These follow what is widely considered the 1st Gen collections like CryptoKitties created by Dapper Labs in 2017, CryptoPunks by Larva Labs, NBA TopShots also by Dapper, and one of my favorites, Zed Run by Virtually Human Studio. 

When it comes to launching a successful NFT collection, planning is key. The art & graphics are cool and obviously important but a strong plan is critical. When building a plan I would boil it down to the infamous, five Ws.

1. Strategic Planning

When it comes to launching a successful NFT collection, planning is key. The art & graphics are cool and obviously important but a strong plan is critical. When building a plan I would boil it down to the infamous, five Ws.

• Who is represented in the project? Are the NFTs representative of real people or is it a fiction based project?
• What is the project? Are they trading cards, gifs, pictures, domains, various multimedia?
• When is the project dropping? Timing is critical. You want to prime your audience and ensure they are ready for your project to drop.
• Where is the project dropping? What platform are you using? Are you creating your own platform (hard to do), leveraging an open platform like OpenSea (easy to do), or hoping to be invited to participate on an exclusive platform like Nifty Gateway (hit or miss).
• Why are you putting this project together? Is it a passion project? Is it a culmination of your lifelong work? Are you simply taking advantage of a trend? Whatever the answer is, it may be important to communicate that to your target audience. The VeeFriends Instagram is a great example of a project that's communicated its why super well.

2. Make it Exclusive

Some of the most successful projects, not directly tied to an entire metaverse like Zed Run, have caps on the amount of NFTs that are created. For example:

• CryptoPunks created 10,000 unique characters
• Meebits generated 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters
• Bored Apes Club produced 10,000 NFTs
• VeeFriends are limited to 10,255 tokens with many offering unique utility

3. Marketing Marketing Marketing

It should be evident at this point that marketing makes a project. In the world of NFTs, I would not subscribe to the idea that "if you build it they will come” Field of Dreams methodology. With millions of NFTs floating around in cyberspace at this point, there is a good chance nobody is coming if you don't have a strategic marketing plan. Typically good projects have an industry influencer attached to it, to push the project to the masses. In the case of VeeFriends, you have Gary speaking directly to millions of loyal followers. In the case of Meebits, you have Larva Labs leveraging their built-in credibility from the success of CryptoPunks. The creators of the Bored Apes Club benefited from resounding interest and support from collectors such as Panksy and 888, with each snagging and sharing their love of the collection across Twitter.

4. Go Beyond Collectibles & Build In Utility

At the beginning of 2021, we experienced an NFT explosion that brought the technology to celebrities and mainstream investors alike. It also saw the creation of millions of NFT art pieces which served as standalone works with no real utility outside of a store of value. This singular utility may no longer cut it. VeeFriends is a perfect example of utility tokens. Each token comes with a specific action or rewards attached to its ownership. I believe we'll see more of this style drop in the future. Athletes, influencers, and artists all offering exclusive experiences to loyal fans that purchase their content. 

Zed Run's metaverse has similarly done a fantastic job building utility into the project. Buying horses is really only the beginning of their metaverse. The ability to breed, race, and win horse races makes Zed horses much more than a collectible. If you don't have the resources to offer experiences like Gary or build a metaverse like Zed, then you can simply offer unlockable content with each NFT purchase. Blokkbots, a project I've supported, has leveraged this feature on OpenSea and has received a lot of strong feedback.

5. Platform Matters

I recommend all NFT projects have their own landing page/website, while also integrating with OpenSea, similar to the CryptoPunks landing page found here. OpenSea is currently the largest NFT aggregator and it has significant traffic. It’s important to have a presence on the platform and allow for your assets to be sold on their marketplace as a secondary sale. This grows notoriety of the project and increases transaction volume. The only project I've highlighted that is not transactable on OpenSea is NBA TopShot, which was intentionally created as an exclusively closed marketplace on Flow.

I'll continue to monitor both successful and not-so-successful collections in order to refine my process. Personally, I'll be launching my own projects in the near future, and have been taking on clients that would like help with theirs. If you are working on a project and would like to talk strategy, feel free to shoot me a line.

For day to day NFT updates follow me on Instagram.