NIL, NFTS, AND RARE TRACKS w/ Lockerverse

the technology and amplify the platform. We're currently in the world where AI has taken over all technology conversations, but there's still some excitement in corners of the Internet about Web three. With that, what particularly is still interesting about NFTs and crypto to locker Verse, people in our community to really get left behind when they're these big jumps in technology, and so for me, it's us having a

seat at the table and really shaping that space. You know, I think anybody that calls himself an expert in the space currently, I think it's not matured enough. And so for us at locker Verse, we were really excited about how do we infuse culture into this space, how do we do it in a responsible way and really focus on not only the creators but also their fans and consumers.

Oh yeah, trade touched on it, but you know, really important to us when we jumped in this was you know, being from diverse backgrounds and being people who are oftentimes left behind in these cultural or technological revolutions, is to really drive the space and really bring our culture to it and not just you know, have a seat at the table, to actually build the table. And that's what we set out to do when we decided to make a lot of diverse we said we wanted to make

that platform. We wanted to make the highway and the bridge for our people to be at the center of this technological revolution. And so that's kind of what we're focused on on a daily basis. Yeah. Yeah, and then there are still so many people who are let's say, not sold about the value of particularly art NFTs. There's I mean, obviously those among us are obviously so, but there's still so many people who are like, well, why would I buy this digital asset when I can when

I can invest that money into a physical asset. And my argument is like, look, you know kids, and if you if you gave my kid, I show my kid a dollar versus a rollbuck, they would have a challenge deciding which one they want, right, And so we're living increasingly digital lives, and why would we not have things that show what we care about in this digital space?

You know, talk about that if you could. And I think an important part there is your child is educated on both of those, right, the physical asset and the digital asset. And I think that's what's really missing from the space. Right If you go back and look at some old clips when there was the start of the internet, you know, people would make fun It's like why would you ever stream a baseball game? Have you heard of radio? Right?

And so then it which is educating on you know, what the internet can do, and I think this is just the next evolution of that. It's really the underlying blockchain technology that's important, not so much the tokens or or the crypto, but what the underlying technology can really do for fans, for creators. And we hope to continue

to shake that. Could you continue because I want to talk because when we talk about NFTs, traditionally we're just talking about art, but NFTs, you know, it could be so many different types of NFTs, And so if you could talk about what it matters to you guys when you talk about what the actual technology of the blockchain could do when you talk about non functibility of a token, our thesis behind this is really about providing utility to people,

utilizing the NFT and utilizing the blockchain technology to actually deliver something of value to folks. And when you talk about you know, your your child looking at a digital asset and a dollar's kind of the same. Vein, I think it's really important to note. You know, people are spending more time than ever online and people digital persona is as important now is there is their real world persona. And so when people talk about acquiring physical assets, that's great,

you know. And we used to look at folks. I remember going to people's houses. They had all these DVDs or vhs. Is I'm the law just taking up space. But then all of a sudden, folks were, you know, having digital versions of that same content and then streaming the content. And so what we look at is we transition into this new new world where your digital persona and your digital assets are extremely valuable. We want to be at the forefront of actually enabling that technology and

bringing culturally significant projects to the table. And so, you know, where we feel that there's a big void is a lack of culture in the space, and so we wanted to empower these top tier creators who really do define the culture to bring their assets to life there and right.

And that's what we think is going to shape the space if we have these cultural drivers all in one centralized platform who are able to reach their fans in new and meaningful ways and then give them access to physical experiences or give them access to exclusive merchandise in apparel or maybe content that is behind the scenes. You know. We think about folks like CJ. Stroud and him giving access to his top fans in terms of the process he goes through he's preparing for the NFL draft, or

folks like that. We saw Conriquez, one of the top drivers in music in the Latin entertainment space. Hi of an access to fans of this behind the scenes content that you can't get anywhere else. And I think this blockchain technology is the perfect mechanism to bring that culture to life in a new way. And that's what we see NFTs as being kind of the ticket, the conduit to actually get get folks some real value that they

can't get in the in the real world. And I really yeah, I want to really you know, highlight what Love said about the NFT being a conduit. Right, So when we go out and talk to talent and try to acquire IP, you know, we say, this is just another asset offering for your fans and consumers in a way that hey, in the future, there will be a

permanent digital record of what you provided to them. Right until laid out some uses the use cases of utility, but once you explain that hey, this isn't really no different from a T shirt, from a hat, from the opportunity to stream with Brawny, this is something that you can create that will live permanently on the blockchain, they instantly get it. And I think that's why we've had some competitive dvantage with acquiring some of the talent in

IP that we have with the last year. One piece to add to that is, I think creators are really excited about the royalty aspect of their assets being sold on the blockchain because you look at you know, folks like myself and Trey. We're rabid sneakerheads, right, But let's say we flip a pair of sneakers. The actual person behind that product is enabled to be able to share

in the royalty. And so we look at things like NFTs, and blockchain technology is enabling those original creators to receive value for the products that they're putting out in the space. And so when we look at you know, you acquire a CJ. Stroud NFT and that gives you access to exclusive content, experienced merchandise, apparel. When that NFT is sold, CJ. Stroud gets to share in the upside and receive a

royalty payment for that. But if you're looking at traditional assets, like let's just take that sneaker example, his sneaker got sold one time without being tied to the blockchain. No royal payment there. And so when we look at empowering creators, especially diverse creators who are oftentimes not able to benefit from the fruits of their work it's certainly not on a perpetual basis, we think this tool is the perfect

mechanism to really create that empowerment. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure if you call it a wallet, but to me, it feels like a wallet that provides me, you know, access not only to my digital assets, but also the communities I belong to, not just the keys to those communities, but the communities are housed there also, so for the people who haven't experienced locker Verse themselves yet, you know, describe what spending you know, thirty minutes or an hour

on the technology might be like Gosha, Yeah, so our core we're community platform, right, and so the idea is a fan, you come and join the community, and once you're in that community, you have the opportunity to either purchase a digital collectible from a particular talent or creator, but then also experience their traditional consumer product goods. But what's really important for a locker Verse if you really

want to meet folks where they are right. And so for example, we had an event at the Celebration Bowling and Land and we had a QR code up on the screen. We gave away the first ever ESPN digital collectible for a college football game. And what we found is where people started to interact with each other in the app and then they would meet up in person at our activation. And so we found that to be

really really fruitful. And so if you go into our app, not only will you find your community and find your creators, but you may also have an opportunity to build relationships with people that you might not necessarily have the opportunity to unless you found found that person in our communities when you consider things like the Nil or Carlos, when you think when you think of things like the Nil name, image and likeness and opportunities, athletes particularly have to be

rewarded for their talents these days, how does your platform Let's say I'm a college student or a high school student and I've got skills, right, I got some game, you know, talk about what is there for me on lockervers to be able to take advantage of, you know, my value in the marketplace. Absolutely, so when we set out to build locker Verse, we really thought about how

we were going to empower these top tier creators. And as we define creators, that's athletes as entertainers, musicians, writers, anybody who's using their creative genius to better the world or empower themselves. And so when you think about, you know, a NIL player, these top tier athletes that are coming out of high school, they're now able to get paid. Some of them stay by stay getting paid at the high school level. They really need to engage their community

of super fans. And there wasn't really a platform out there where that type of engagement could occur, so traditional social media doesn't really fit that mold, and the few platforms that engage in community building don't have the additional attributes of our platform, and that is the ability to disseminate content, the ability of mint and sell NFTs, the ability to sell merchant ice in apparel, the ability to have your podcast all in that same place, and then

again with the NFTs and blockchain technology, that ability to really create a digital asset that ties you to real world experiences, this exclusive content and really gives you, as a superfan, the ability to engage with that top tier creator that you're already a fan of. So what we set out to do was really capture these cultural driver

NIL athletes. So you know, having six McDonald's all Americans in last year's class and two in this year's class, including Bronnie James, and having on our platform their a b ability to connect directly with their community of superfans and then sell to those fans NFTs, give them exclusive merchandise and experiences, and then really empower each other behind.

What's so important at the end of the day is this ability to have community, and I think that's something everybody's yearning for and we wanted to have that in a simplified, centralized fashion, all under the same umbrella. And that's what Locker versus. So when you think about um these growing opportunities for fans to participate with athletes they love, teams they love, and etc. You know, things like sports

betting is you know, proliferating across the country. What are some of the things that major league organizations, the MLB, the NFL, NBA have been plagued with over the past few years that makes them want to look at other ways to engage their fans, right, I mean, I think that's a that's a great question for us. You know, it's really how do we generate user generated content, unit,

user generated even communications? And so for example, what we're doing with the Nipsey project will have cover album art by some of the premier artists that we were that we're working with, but we're also going to allow the community to actually create their own user generated art, right, and then we would take that and propel that into that particular project. So we're still tinkering with a few

different ideas. But you know, something that we learned at Celebration Bowl and something that that he has been was really excited about is that when we when we saw the engagement in the app during the game, they really liked that, right because now you had fans that were at the activation at the game communicating with each other,

talking trash back and forth within our application. And so, you know, I think there's this technology lent itself for further fan engagement, but then also testing some of those things around sports betting and gaming. Yeah, you mentioned Nipsey a couple of times here, and you've got assets inside your your metaverse with unreleased tracks from people like Nipsey, Hustle, you know, PEMPC, DJ's Screw. How do you get stuff

like that? Yeah, I think I think all of this is just the vestige of really deep relationships with the folks behind a lot of that music. Right. So one of our advisors to the company is mister Lee, who produced Blue Laces, Wanted two and produced some of the biggest hits for Pimpsey Um and came out of that Houston and Texas rap scene where he had big connections

to folks like DJ Screw. And so because of all that, because of those relationships of trust and the significance of the platform, and us just saying hey, we want to not just have a seat at the table, but actually build the table and have people like us be at

the forefront of this technology. That's something that was really exciting to someone like mister Lee, who's really been an innovator in the space, you know, all the way back to the days he was producing for folks like Tupac, and so he wants to be a cultural driver and bringing these significant projects to life, projects that we really

consider sacred. And so I think our perspective on the space, I think our technology, and I think the way that we're going about saying hey, we want people from our neighborhoods to be able to use this technology and connect to the top tier creators that they're already fans up in these new and significant ways. That was something that was just attractive, and so, you know, we couldn't be more fortunate to have partners like mister Lee helping us

drive this in this space. But then you look at the other end of the spectrum with these you know, I don't want to say emerging artists, but artists of a much younger generation. So highlighting folks like Chase b who said, Hey, I really want to be at the forefront of this space too. And some of the things I want to provide my fans is unique access to experiences using blockchain technology and NFTs. But I want to

deliver to them some values, some significant value. And so you know, you think of people who want to record with the same folks who are who are having music produced for Travis Scott, and Chase is saying, Hey, I'm going to give my superfans a beatpack and let those folks record on it and give them an opportunity to get what they never could have access to just because it's probably impossible to be able to afford or just connected to get connected to someone like Chase, but because

he understands the value of what this technology is and wants to provide real value to his superfans. He's utilizing blockchain technology and the locker Verse platform to deliver those experiences and give those super fans and these new creators an opportunity to record over over beat's produced by him

that you otherwise wouldn't have access to. And if I can add to that briefly, it's such a new space that I think we were able to secure some of those relationships because of our past as sports entertainment attorneys, right understanding IP and a lot of times when you enter into a new space and technology, uh, the underlying

law is the same. It's really just new terminology. And so once we were able to master that terminology, we could take our legal background and that allow creators to really trust us right that we would do it the

right way. We would be intentional h and we try to you know, not provide any lift on the talent, right because in our former life we understood, you know, the demands of their main thing, which were a music, sport or r. And so we're kind of taking that experience combined with the technology, and that's helped us speak. Let's expand on accouncept of ownership in the world where assets have typically been leveraged for the greater benefit of

platforms versus the artists, the league versus the athletes. Yeah, there's a lot of talk about what blockchain technologies allow for artists to retain staking their work, but the reason they gave up so much was there was a faster upside and name recognition, fame. What have you co found

to speak on it? I think one just the society is just more educated on ownership and what that means, right, you know, you hear it's buzzwords and barbershops, you know, masters owning this until there's just a common understanding now that hey, I should probably you know, read the fine print a little bit more than maybe over a decade ago.

And I think that's one aspect of it. But then the second aspect is that the technology allows creators right to really explore areas where maybe a big brand would say, hey, we want to put you in this particular box. I think a really good example that is Broughty. You know, the project with Brownie will not focus on him being a basketball player, more so for his love of gaming,

his love of being a snowboarder. So that's what really excited him in Savannah, and it's it's the same with some of the artists that we're working with on the Nipsey EP project. You know, how can we bring his legacy through the yard, But let me try different type of style that I wouldn't normally do. Right, because I know the underlying technology is efficient, we can do it in a really cost effective manner and allow the creator

to grow as well. So that's that's the part that I think is the most fascinating, not just the ownership, but really pushing the bounds of creativity and not having to rely on a brand to provide budget or provide the space for you to create. And it's really putting

the power back in the hands of the creator. Um. You know, so many times with these traditional platforms, you've got creators providing all of the value in the platform themselves or the traditional brands behind them receiving all the benefit. You know, this tooling essentially enables folks to flip that that model on its head and say, I'm the creator. I'm the one who's whose genius, whose time, whose work ethic, whose lack of sleep has gone into creating this product

that my superfans want to be a part of. And instead of the platform themselves or the brand being the one that receives all the benefits, those individual creators are

able to take back some ownership in that. And I think that's something that's That's something Trade and I talk about every morning when we when we have our one on one meeting, is how do we ensure that we're giving more value to the creator, empowering them with tools, with access, with an ability to connect with that community of super fans, and I think if we continue to stay laser focused on that empowerment of creator piece, we're going to find tremendous success and enable these creators to

continue to find trement success. Yeah, let's go a level deeper because we think about the concept we we just talked about record labels selecting who's going to be the rising star, or social media platforms determining who was gonna get access to the feed? You know, how does how do you think about who you decide to partner with from a brand ambassadorship. It's one thing for me to sign up for an account and put my assets up, but how does locker Verse think about we want to

partner with these athletes, these specific ones who who? How do you make that analysis internally of who you want to wear the locker Verse you know, franchise. Yeah, for us, the first thing we look at is do they have an interest outside of what they're known for? Right? You know? And then the second thing, what story do they want to tell? And how does that story align with our

thesis and our ethos, which is cultural defining stories. Right, So when you look, you know, hey, you signed Bronnie James obviously that that's awesome, but we also signed more House College, right, and what story do they want to tell? How does more House look going into the metaphors and going into the future and tell What we try to look at is Frank we call it franchise will Ip and say hey, you know, how can this impact so many different people regardless of where they are? And then

what story we're trying to tell? And I think we've done a great job of identifying that talent early on. We didn't go out and just say, hey, let's go with the with the individuals that have the biggest names

or the biggest followings. And I know we mentioned quite a few of those folks, but if I cannot mentioned beyond Caa Pastel who's a Hebrew Brandley protege and she's under ten thousand followers on Instagram, but she consistently is talking about, you know, the story that she wants to bring to life of of you know, her characters, right, and being black in Chicago and that artist, So we thought, hey, let's let's partner with her. She has a lot of

interesting views that we can't wait to share. And I'll say that for the project, but you know, we really kind of dig under the rock and see what we can find. You know, what I love about what you're doing is it's like you can it's a real startup. And like when you think about what you could build versus what you could partner with other people to build

and plug in. You know, even from like on the merch side, you know there's a Shopify partnership, and so I think about you could have built your own e commerce platform. You know, speed matters, you know these days, and focusing on what actually matters is more important than things that are you know add ons or you know

amenities or such a thing. But can you talk about why you decided to be such a be such an ambassador of partnerships versus believing you've got to do everything on your own in the beginning, like so many of us make that error. I would say, I think a lot of us make that mistake because they don't even know where to start to form a relationship with a partner, right, And a lot of times those partners are not receptive

to black lead tech companies. Right. So, but you know, I think we had a we had a competitive advantage with some of the names, and so those calls were easier, and I think we should acknowledge that privilege. And so for us, you know, we would go out and seek those partnerships, but we would also drive and say, hey, we're going to be responsible for creative. We're going to bring you the stories and we're going to tell it our way. And they were receptive to that because we

were very protective of our talent in IP. But you're absolutely right, speed matters. Um. You know, we started this essentially right when the NFT crash was happening, but it allowed us to move slowly and be intentional and seek out the right partners as well. Um, and you know, we're excited to partner with who we have, but I'll turn over the last to kind of ship one. Yeah. I mean, I think it was a really significant jump for Trailing myself to leave an actual partnership right where

you you know, we're at a law firm. It's been around for one hundred and fifty years, and it finally reached that point where we had corner offices and said, hey, telling our wives and our young families were about to do something different, and if we were going to make that move, we weren't going to just do it to

to just throw out some NFT projects. We said, there's an opportunity in this space for creators and our people to be at the center of the technological revolution, and we felt uniquely suited to actually be the ones driving it. So we wanted to aim big, and we wanted to build the platform that was that actually going to be

the bridge to that. And so we knew if we were going to really service this bridge, we had to find the right partners that were already in Web three and find the ones that we're already in Web two and say, hey, do you believe in our mission? Do you believe what we're trying to do, and do you believe it's important? And if you share that ethos and if you're trying to reach that promised land with us, get on board, right, come on into the Locker Verse.

And so we really believed in our journey. We really believed in what we were trying to do, and we were very intentional about finding the right partners who were going to believe in us and help propel that. And so you know, we're really thankful for folks like the Disney Accelerator for saying, hey, Locker Verse what y'all are

trying to do is significant. Is it's in line with what Disney is trying to do with realizing the significance of their IP products, like what they did with Black Panther in Cocoa and other significant IP in their ecosystem. But when you think about the fandom that exists around those projects, how do you get people like that to go back to Disney Park so or go back to

es PN celebration ball. And what we saw was, Hey, this technology that we are building, this platform that we are building, can really be the bridge between things like that. And so when we had the opportunity to work with folks like ESPN to deliver the first ever digital collectible and then bring folks directly on our platform and have them be a part of this Web three experience in the way that has never happened before, we just said,

this couldn't be a better opportunity. But for us, it's really about partnering with the right folks and understanding that we need partners that understand our mission and believe in it and are trying to help us get there together. Yeah, that's that's dig in there, because you know, what are some of the things that are the most important things you've learned about getting the attention of would be high

profile investors and partners. You know, you've got people like you know, NFL Asian David Logetta, like Brandon Brown of the Giants, and you know investors from c AA like And here's why I ask, it's there's so many projects startups founded by people listening to this podcast as who

would benefit and or need profile. They need high profile and what are some what are some of the key things you've learned about getting those relationships and managing those relationships well to where those people even take the time to listen. I think to start, it's it's really about listening to them, right and seeing what's going on in their space, in their orbit, and finding a way to

create a common thread or what you're building. And I think early on we we you know, we didn't do a good, good enough job of educating some of those folks just about the space, right. But then we took a step back and say, you know, Dave, you know what are some of your players concerned with? You know, what are they focused on, what are they what do they want to do? And then we would listen to those answers and then plug that into what we were trying to build, and then we would go back and

explain it. Uh. And you know, Dave always says, I don't even invest in companies, I invest in people. So a lot of it is also just being there, being consistent, not always needing needing something or asking for something, but just being prey and in providing uh, you know, guidance when it when it's steating. And again, you know we we we were attorneys for a decade, all right, and so there were some there were some privilege there that some of those folks would call us for for solutions

to problems. And so if you have that advantage, if you if you if you think you can provide that, don't be afraid to stand on that because it will help build a relationship. You know, I'm curious about, you know, the structure of the company, and especially when you have co founders, you know, identifying roles and so you're not stepping on each other's toes and so you leaning into what each other is good at. How did you determine what your duties would be as you guys go out

there and beat the pavement to build something special. So that you know, you know, trade doesn't feel like Carlos is in the way and Carlos is looking at the trade like are you on your job? I'm on my job. I want to make sure we all do on our job. Like how do you determine that? Yeah, A couple of

things all that, you know. It's like, like I said, we were partners at a law firm and uh it tried some you know, very significant cases together, built a practice together where we were servicing clients in significant ways. If I had to be in California for a deposition and Trade had to be in a hearing in Houston, we were able to deliver value kind of across the

country in unique ways. And so how we really came up with that model, which is saying, hey, this is my brother and I trust him, and I know nobody's going to be able to deliver the value that I can in a way that trade may be perfectly suited

to handle this unique situation. And so instead of us being those people who were close to the vest with our clients and not trying to let each other in, we were always ones that said, hey, I can expand my practice, I can be a more significant lawyer, I can deliver more value to my client if I partner with you and work with you. And so when we decided to start the company, we kind of approached it with that same ethos. This trade can do things in

rooms that I can never imagine doing. And I like to think there's certain things that I can do that trade would would view as being significant as well. And so when we said let's build Locker Verse, it was all about let's let's find a way to achieve our goal. And if you got to play quarterback today and I got to play running back or getting the trenches and block for you, That's what I'm gonna do. And Trey approached it with the same way. And our third co founder,

Marcus Rance was actually the team teammate of Minus. Stanford approached it the same way, you know, when we really just looked at the situation and said, who's going to be the best one to be the one speaking in this situation, or who's going to be the best one to actually draft up the documents or established and strengthen that relationship with particular talent. And that's how we approach

it every day. We're not about titles. We're really just about achieving a common goal, and we get very strategic and in depth and try to approach everything without ego. And I think because of that, it's enabled us to go much faster and avoid a lot of the pitfalls that other folks see in the space because they're so centered on a particular title. We're having the right office space,

you know, We're not about that. We're about actually delivering a product of value and delivering a service at the end of the day that's going to set our selves and set our creators apart. Yeah, and I think it started before we founded the company. It started with just our relationship not only the practice, but also at Stanford as well. Right. I didn't I didn't know our other co founder Marcus at Stanford. But as soon as Love said, hey, this is the guy, there was no question. Right. So

it's about trusting your team. And then also when when ego does creep in in those moments, you have to check it yourself and then ask your your co founders and your team. Hey, I think I'm right on this, but everybody else is saying I'm not. Let me know if you think my ego is getting in the way. And we've had those those tough conversations and candid conversation. You know, it's by design that we don't have titles on our site. We don't have titles and our bios.

It's co founder. You know, we really are a team even you know, we'll go down to the minute detail. Hey, this investor is lead. Who has the best relationship, who feels the most comfortable you take lead on the meeting. So everyone should be prepared to play all roads at

all times, and it's worked out for us today. Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blackvity, Afrotech on the Black Effect Podcast Network and I Hired Media, and it's produced by Morgan Dubonn and me Well Lucas, with additional production supported by Sarah Ergan and Rose mc lucas. Special thank you to Michael David Sipping. That's a Toronto. Learn more about my guests and other tech dis Rutherlans and innovatives at afrotech dot com. Enjoining Black Tech Green Money,

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