Exploring Web3 and Solana's NFT Frontier with Jords of Boogle

In this episode , we're going to explore George's current project , which is Google , and what he's building next . Thanks so much for being on the show . If you're wondering , he goes by earlyish adopter on Twitter . If you're familiar with the space or have been watching the last two years , you definitely know who he is . George . Thanks for coming on .

Thanks for having me . Man . Before we get too deep into it , I just want to just give everybody your background , tell us who you are and how you got into crypto and what you do in the space .

Before , I got on chain and things like that , but basically have a history and the sales side of things , went into more corporate partnerships and the IRL side of things and then found crypto , basically from being stood down at work in 2020 off the back of COVID and , having a lot of time on my hands , managed to delve into it the backside of 2020 , and then

got pretty obsessed by the time I got back to work . I was pretty active in it and then kind of learned my lesson , messed around for a little bit and then , fortunate enough , to start Google at the end of 2021 and have basically been full time since .

But there's a whole lot of nuances in between that high level side of the story , but that's the high level of it .

I had the same approach with some penny stocks and tech stocks and things like that prior to when I wanted to learn about this particular goldmine or eSports stock or whatever it might be , and I knew that I probably wasn't going to do that unless I bought some and kind of forced myself to learn about what is down my investment .

So I kind of was going down the tech stock route in 2020 , when everything was going up and to the right so it was a bit easy mode and then stumbled back into crypto . It had been flown around in circles that I was in for a while and I never really had the time or understanding to try and figure it out .

And then in 2020 , when I had some more time , I was like all right , now's the time . So I think I bought some ETH , when it was , I don't know , $150 or whatever it was at that time and that confirmed to me . I was like all right , cool , I now own X amount of ETH and I've got to figure out how this works now .

So once I figured it out , it was more about forced education via buying it and then learning after . And then I found NFTs at the start of 2021 , which kind of really clicked pretty quickly to me . Coming from , I used to do the kind of buying and selling of the sneaker side of things as well , so just kind of made sense .

Before the NFT side I was just basically buying all of these obscure things . I can't remember I have a whole heap of tokens that I'm sure are worth absolutely nothing now , but I remember just buying random crap to learn about the obscure kind of niches of what people are building on the technology .

It was more like I really want to own that pair of sneakers in my size but I probably won't wear it and there's a good chance that you know the value will occur and I'm going to enjoy holding it in between . And I also tried some like little kind of startup businesses around the sneaker stuff as well , which kept me busy and it was interesting .

But I think there's a massive overlap and parallel between the people that spend a lot of time around like buying these kind of newer hype collections when it comes to sneakers and where the NFT side is now .

Like you think about a new mint that's like unrevealed and there's a bunch of people wanting to get it and there's borders involved and it's going to probably go up from like the initial price of purchase .

You don't even have to really get it , you know it's going to have the price tag before it arrives and you have things like like dealing on stock X , which is essentially like an open C platform for streetwear and sneakers .

It really , I think , helped cut the initial learning curve when it came to NFTs and understanding the value and use case , because I was like , oh , I've done this before .

You know , I bought a pair of like Nike off-white vaults or whatever it is , and I bought them for retail because I got lucky on a raffle that I was able to purchase them and I could have sold them before they were even in my hands to someone else where , on a website called stock X , where , you know , I never even actually own that pair of sneakers .

I just own a JPEG and a receipt , basically , and as far as prominences , provenance is concerned , that's tough , but you kind of have the parallel with that in an NFT , but one is verifiable on chain .

The other one you have to do like you know I'm sure anyone listening to this have been in this scene like there's a whole industry just focused on something called like legit checking sneakers and luxury wear , because it's hard , you know , like it's very easy and we take it for granted in the NFT world to legit check an NFT because you know it's verified on

chain . Like on the Ethereum side of things , they have like verified contracts on Solana , you can just jump on a marketplace . It's super easy .

But if you're buying a pair of red octobers , like the first kind of sneaker that Kanye did with Nike and the super rare , it's very , very hard to verify that they're a real pair of red octobers and you're probably going to drop like 10 , 20 grand before you find out really if they're real or not . So yeah , it made sense to me .

Essentially their business model is , say , you have , you know , a Rolex or red octobers , we'll use the same example . You send them your items , they will verify and store it in their warehouse and then you basically have like a receipt for that and then you can trade and sell or buy other assets that are being stored in their warehouse .

So I might be able to buy a pair of sneakers for $500 that's in the stock X warehouse , never have them sent to me , and then a year later can sell it to someone else for hopefully higher , without ever owning that pair of sneakers outside of just the digital receipt , which is essentially a web to NFT . And that is like really really intuitive .

And I think that that model's being replicated now on chain by a few people who are trying . But yeah , like basically you send it to them and they legit check it , and there are a lot of stories about errors happening . Like they'll take on the risk . They say , yeah , it's all legit . Blah , blah , blah .

You buy it , you end up getting it sent to you and there's a chance it's fake . And there's a chance it's fake and you might be the fourth owner who owns it without realizing it's fake . It's a whole industry in it , and it's the same with watches . It's the same with all of these amazing things that we want , like that's the beauty of the blockchain .

It's transparent , real and you can verify it , like verify not check , kind of thing . But there's a lot of people that don't have that same ability and it costs a lot of people , a lot of money .

That's the really big power of blockchain technologies is the ability to trust the cryptography , trust the math , that the thing that you're getting is actually valid and real and authentic and invaluable , like the value that it's been advertised as is actually correct . So sneaker collecting that translates really well to collectibles .

But talk about community a little bit . Because you've been involved a lot of different NFT communities , including Google , which you help bootstrap . Can you just maybe tell me that story , how you got involved in the project ? What is it ? What is Google ? And kind of share the Genesis story there ?

. Solana at that point , you know , we're pre big run . I think it's about $40 , $50 or something around that ballpark Life's good . You know , the NFTs are only really just been possible . Previously . We had like solarians and creatures , but they weren't even really NFTs . They were kind of like a botched method of doing it .

You had a candy machine like just about to come out . You know , you had Olaplex scrapping away , providing like the only way to kind of really provide an auction service from a front end side . The vibes were good , but there was really not a lot of stuff that people were looking at and there was such kind of new capital trying to be focused .

Oh yeah , fract as well . I've got to mention them . I was poking around trying to figure out where my place was . I really felt that I was early to eat , but I didn't have the capital to really convert into what I would love to have gone back and done .

But I was fortunate enough with some of the ethbays that I had the capital on by the time Solana started kicking off , I was like all right , you know , this is my chance to be early on something . I think that there's a lot of potential here .

It's it's like unironically giving me that kind of early eth vibe as far as the NFT ecosystem , when it really started to develop off the back of board Apes . So I wanted to have a kind of large footprint in the ecosystem because I knew that there was a lot of opportunity coming . But , that being said , it really wasn't forced .

So I was just kind of poking around the SMB mint , I think , just went down . People were messing about with that for , you know , gone for like a hundred bucks or something like that .

I was just scrolling , I think , on Twitter at work one day because at that time it was pretty hard to work , there was just so much going on I scrolled past what I now know to be a Google , which was this little like kind of Twitter profile , like 200 followers or something , just had the Google kind of that core character that we still love and see today ,

and had the name and the character basically , and that was just about it . And then I think I had one post about . You know , we're going to auction some ghosts off soon , keep an eye out .

And I reached out to them and at that point , you know I wasn't much of a name , I just maybe had like 1000 followers of 1500 followers or something like that and reached out and was just like , hey , man , like this is really interesting , I love the name , I love the character . How can I get one ? Basically , that was the goal was to buy one .

At that point I was still rocking an ETH NFT as my profile picture . I really wanted to kind of like make the transition over . Yeah , it was just like really organic . He basically go back to me a little bit of a botched message .

Like at the time I was working in corporate partnerships and biz dev and account management , Like I was doing stuff that was really comms and that kind of like sales pitch side of things was really core to what I was working on .

And the message that was returned to me wasn't up to the standard that I would love to have seen , like from these kind of new projects coming out of Solana . So I basically just put my hand up . I was like , hey , you know , if I can help here , let me know .

Like I'm happy to help with some of these comms , like if another George reaches out wanting to get something , like I would love to be the one responding because I think this can do something pretty cool .

And in the classic crypto fashion , we just kind of like had a discord handshake agreed on , like how we kind of run the first little bit and just see how it went . That's kind of the origin story of how it all started , and then now it's kind of grown once again organically into into what it was , because we got very lucky along the way .

Like somebody who's like a producer sees the story and sees the picture and they're like you know what this could be something . They have the insight to take action on it and sometimes the artist didn't , doesn't have like the other half of the capability to market the project .

And actually , if you talk to a bunch of creators , especially in Salon ecosystem , but in any ecosystem , like they'll say to you I just want to make my art , I just want to make these creations , but I don't really know how to market it or build an audience .

First of all , tell us what Google became and then let's work backwards and talk about how it got there . It's very different from where it started . It sounds like .

And there was a lot of times where you know the Google story would have been very different or would have gone in different direction .

But through a series of good events , the right people kind of being involved , or just the right circles around myself and the other people that kind of jumped on , we got really lucky and now we're very fortunate to be kind of a pillar of the Salon ecosystem . When it comes to NFTs , I would say , where the most recognizable PFP on Salona hits very hard .

The community we have fostered is about 85 individuals , all very impressive figures and people I'm kind of like proud to be associated with , people who are founders of different businesses , different projects , all different walks of life , and it's kind of just a centralized place to discuss whatever topics you want to discuss , have fun without the noise , and you all

have this kind of like tie to an asset , so you're much more likely to participate , communicate and kind of add value . It's hard to kind of put in one sentence , but it's been described as like an on chain country club . It's got the goals of being kind of like a premium luxury brand that we're kind of walking towards towards the end of the year .

We were fortunate enough to have kind of like events of the year last year at breakpoint , had hosted some really cool things and also just done some really interesting initiatives for like how we kind of build up the ecosystem , how we contribute above and beyond our means .

But yeah , basically it's just a group of good guys and girls who are trying their best and I don't know how it came to what it is now of us is where it came from , but I'm really really grateful and fortunate for everyone involved .

The way that they started was like after George got on board , they started auctioning off these Googles originally on Olaplex on our original storefront product , and just slowly built the community with other collectors and other people who were building this Lonnie ecosystem , buying this Google , different versions of this profile picture and by owning it you got access to

this community and the community became very curated and high quality , Like the people who are in that community from what I know are some of the top builders and entrepreneurs and investors in the Solonnie ecosystem . So it became really desirable and you'll still see , even in the middle of the bear market , a Google gets sold or traded for six figures .

It became like a pretty valuable asset to own , to have access to this club and it's a digital club which is kind of interesting . It's been one of the most fascinating things for me to watch grow and I was obviously aware of Google very early but did not buy because I tried not to buy on my own platform .

I felt like it was a little bit weird to do that . Where did the idea come for the country club ? Was that you ?

I remember very early on after you got on board was when things kind of changed about the comms with that project and I feel like at some point there was a tipping point where it was like whoa , this is like an exclusive club and there are some people here that you might want to like sit next to if you could get in .

And for me it was all about how do I make good friends and represent myself correctly in a way that externally looks how it should be . It's a good reflection on you know me being genuine , but it's also a bit curated when it comes to the whole branding of the page and everything . And I took a similar approach with Google .

It was about how can we make this brand really premium and really desirable and kind of set a top down culture of getting the right people involved early and then we'll figure out what we want to do with it .

It was never like you know , okay , we're gonna do X , y , z so we can get here , and then we'll do this and we'll do that , like Google , from day one , has never had that specific roadmap .

Because I wanted to be able to be , you know , nimble and be able to pivot to what needs to be done , and also because it was just , it was a brand first , and I say this to this day as well . As you know , we need to do what the brand Demands , what the brand deserves , because it's always been about .

I mean , you use the metaphor of like does it push the boat forward or whatever , like it's always is this gonna help the brand ?

If the answer is no , or maybe it's just throwing out the door if it's yes , then we take it on , and that's been from day one and I think we really took that approach seriously about what is this decision going to lead to when it comes to a brand positivity point of view , and is gonna help this brand be more desirable to the ecosystem .

And once that was established , it made things a lot easier .

Honestly , on every chain that was around that obviously a theorem as well the concept of these small Clubs I guess you could call it just didn't exist , which sounds crazy now that you think about so long others Is an infinite amount of little little groups trying , because the model is so needed , I suppose , but it just wasn't there .

So we were really about okay , you know , we're doing things differently . We're not a ten thousand Size generative collection when I was in general collection , we're not in the same kind of game , so we should play the same game . So and it sounds bad saying it like this , but there was a lot of like we will control where the word Google is positioned .

And if there was , say , a , an ecosystem game or something like that , we're kind of all the big projects through the hand up and it wasn't really a special moment and everyone said yes to it and everyone was in that same bucket . We weren't there .

We didn't want the Google brand to be kind of next to or in the same , in the same size font , next to everything else . That didn't feel exclusive . If it was a open invitation and you could say yes if you wanted to , google would say no .

And if it was a okay , do you want to get some white list spots , all you need to do is like , do a post about it , we would say no , it was . It was a very much A no first marketing tactic and that only works once you've got a desirable brand and a lot of things that people want to get into .

It was a lot of nose , to be honest , and that didn't always come from me . I had seal on . Even a guy called angels was around early days who Really help kind of control the brand quality . But there was a lot of times that we almost stepped into different things that in hindsight would have been the wrong direction or the wrong decisions in .

It was always one person in the room who is like no , let's not do that , and that was . That was the difference , I think .

What's the most exciting thing for you in this time In the market ?

I don't necessarily think it's the , you know , the best use of capital in times like this for speculating on things that are , you know , four seconds old and things like that , but it's really interesting how deeply ingrained Solana is to a lot of bodies and a lot of users .

I'm personally really excited about it's not a meme anymore , you know . It does bring true the kind of only possible on Solana line that's been . That's been Come up lately because I'm really excited about that being showcased correctly .

I think we've got things like dialect and trip house and cupcake and a few things that are trying to Start focusing on that line and I am really really curious about how impressive we can make that , because there's a lot of arguments and there's a lot of People that that kind of hate the throughput of the chain because it does X , y , z and the downtime and

all of this stuff that comes out .

But I'm really excited for people to start putting out stuff that is truly only possible on Solana , because the initial goal for the crypto for me like how it really started setting in , especially , you know , thanks to all of us as well for Setting the standard of making it possible in the front end for a lot of people is I can be an artist from Thailand

with an iPad from five years ago and I can draw something on procreate and I can upload that and and mint it and sell it , even if it may cost me two cents , and I could sell it for two dollars and there's , you know , essentially no fees if I find no TC mark got incredibly low fees if I don't . And that , to me , is what crypto is all about .

It's about lowering the barrier to entry and onboarding A billion users around the world who are actually able to kind of sell , appreciate and participate in a global ecosystem instantly transferably , instantly transferable , permissionless and trustless , and so long is the best use case for that , in my opinion .

I can't wait to see a PFP collection , like trip house is doing something similar , like I can't wait to see it the next bull market . Have a PFP collection of a million and don't care about force , we just have a million people with it was just raw users representing this mega club , almost like a reddit situation , but wider , and instead of polygons on Solana .

I can't wait to see people you say utilize the throughput of the chain to do things , and I think that's when Solana becomes inarguable .

who are Serious about about crypto .

They want to store their money in US dollars if they want , you rock , if they want , if they want to store in Solana Ethereum or Bitcoin , like we talk about Bitcoin going down , you know , 60% or whatever it is from the top that's outperformed somewhere like Turkey , or the Lebanon currency as well , like , obviously , nigeria is a big Proponent for crypto these

days as well . For the same reasons , and we're seeing something similar happen in the US , where the rights to hold your own currency and your own bank account in whatever ways you would like is not so easy as it used to be and certainly as the technology is there to be enabled for you to do so .

That's the core of it , but if you are a creator and you are painting a physical canvas , trying to sell it to someone across the world for small change on Etsy . That is just almost an unviable business market , but I see the NFT proponent of it to be Just such a bigger opportunity for a lot of people who don't have that opportunity at the moment .

Like all that , it is an internet connection , essentially .

You hold those assets in a wallet that you control , that no one else can take from you , that you don't have to rely on intermediaries to tax everything that you do . That's commerce related , like everything you do on the internet for brands and companies .

It's about All of those things that I just said , but also being able to control that relationship directly with your customer .

In the current form of the internet Twitter , facebook , tick tock all the platforms that are ironically being used to distribute this content we're recording right now they actually control the relationship you have with the customer and it's non transferable across platforms .

When you use , like open source software on permissionless blockchains that are connected to users who have a wallet that they can take with them everywhere , they control their destiny and you control the ability to connect with them , like you can connect with them wherever they are , and I think it's that's a profound shift in the internet .

The internet's been structured in a way to create silos , to create accumulation of value in a very small subset of companies and then to give government control over that , which is like really kind of a scary situation . That's what gets me out of bed in the morning .

You know the why behind what I do in the space , and I think you're basically saying the same thing . It's just , actually my partner , brian Fox , was the one who like helped us narrow down that tagline like control your destiny .

It's been the marching orders for me , like I don't know , for about six , seven months now , been really cool to kind of like narrow it down to that that one . Why ?

So there's a lot of cash operation and then , because people paying less taxes , the government puts the taxes up and then people less likely to pay them again and it kind of started off .

I think a lot about People not wanting to pay even the visa in the bank fees because getting the infrastructure to support , like card fees taking , you know , two percent off every purchase , then you've got the taxes , security and it comes after . By the time it gets to them you know it's down a lot .

So Even something like Salana pay , which you can use to cut out that two percent fee , and you just have to have a facility to accept the inbound transactions , you can pay taxes and everything after , of course .

But To cut out that two percent fee is quite meaningful to a lot of people and I think a lot of people who have never operated a business that takes inbound cash , they didn't really realize how big that fee is from the banking side of things , and it's the same with Shopify or anything else that kind of organizes logistics .

There's a lot of fees that get taken out prior to you actually receiving the money .

There's none of the infrastructure that even you talk about it being kind of hard in the US . It's impossible elsewhere . But because you're using open source software on the internet to generate a wallet . If you can figure that out , there's a learning curve there .

But if you can get through that barrier and just get some money on chain very little amount for Solana to start up and you're a creator or you're just an entrepreneur you can build something without any centralized entity in the way .

It does take a lot more effort than I wish it did , and I think we're all kind of trying to even lower that barrier even more . But before this technology existed , there was just no way for you to even get money into a bank account and send it to your friend on the other side of the planet . Very simple things are actually really hard .

If you can just get a wallet with a handful like a few cents of Sol , that can take you as far as you can possibly imagine .

I think that that is pretty incredible and it'll be interesting to see how that gets replicated and scaled out to not only for Google's business but other brands . I think there's things people can learn by just looking at these niche communities that are popping up and applying them to more IRL or more established brands .

So my last question for you , george , is like what have I not asked you that I should have asked ?

That power of IP doesn't necessarily go away as soon as the collections finish .

So we've got some really interesting things that we're working on on that side and , honestly , at the moment , I'm trying to figure out exactly how I want to start contributing back a bit more value to the Solana ecosystem outside of just shitposting on Twitter and having a bit of fun .

So I think you'll start to see a little bit more content from me soon , whether that be in writing forms or putting my hand up for a few more podcasts like this .

Not exactly sure what it's going to look like , but I'm starting to appreciate my role as an ambassador for all things Solana and I want to start being one of those focal points when it comes to write . This is what's only possible on Solana . I want to showcase XYZ , because I think it's super important .

He's already had a really big impact on the Solana ecosystem in crypto in general and looking forward to seeing you continue to grow . Thanks for coming on .