Ep. 7: Betty (Deadfellaz)

In Episode 7 of Probably Nothing TZ (@TZhongg) and Alexis (@alexisohanian) chat with Betty (@betty_nft), co-founder and “Horde Mother” of Deadfellaz NFT collection. Deadfellaz is an NFT project consisting of 10,000 “undead NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.” In this episode, Betty shares how she assessed the risk of launching an NFT project, how we can continue to break down barriers in web3, and why building an anonymous team is the future.

- Links and References Mentioned in This Episode -

Boiz (@BOIZ_COLLECTION)Boss Beauties (@BossBeautiesNFT)CryptoStacys (@cryptostacys)clevergirls (@CleverGirlsNFT)raptorcity (@raptorcitynft)GoosebumpsGalactic Agency (@GSA_nft)Boring Bananas (@BoringBananasCo)Crypto Covens (@crypto_coven)Cool Cats (@coolcatsnft)

- Timestamps -

1:35: Betty’s superhero origin story

8:13: Why is Betty “anonymous”?

12:02: How can we continue to take down barriers for marginalized communities in web3?

14:26: Betty’s Favorite women based artists/projects

18:00: Why NFTs are the way that the average person can be an early-stage investor

24:10: How does Betty manage her time?

27:23: Betty’s advice for future NFT projects

34:44: What is it like to work with an anonymous team?

39:21: What’s your desert island NFT?

- Mentions -

Psych (@psych_nft)Lirona (@iamlirona)Priyanka (@priyankap_patel)Amy Woodward (@amy__woodward)fatbaby (@NftFat)India (@indiaweston)Leon Lee (@leoneeart)

- Highlights -

*How Betty got into NFT’s*

When Betty first heard about NFTs, she got excited but was scared to engage Like many people, Betty spent time absorbing and learning as much as she could about the space.Her “professional” work was in the corporate creative productive industry so she understood the art side of NFTs right away.Betty’s husband, Psych, was the one who jumped right into NFTs and after seeing all of the projects the Psych was working on, Betty was hooked.

“I was like, I mean, we've worked in creative production together on a corporate level for really amazing brands for years, so the production side of it is something that we do anyway. And having been involved in the communities and things I was like, let's just do our own (NFT).”

“The idea for Deadfellaz just came really organically. We love horror, and we had been discussing like the fascination with zombies across pop culture and how it brings so many people together and I think that people love spooky stuff.”

*Why Deadfellaz had to succeed*

Betty and Pysch’s backs were against the wall

“And it was like, you know, we either throw ourselves into this and it works or it doesn't work and so though that was like the fire, obviously, we have three children, it had to work. And the more we just sat down, it was like, it is going to be amazing.”

NFTs give anyone a chance to make a name for themselves, no matter what situation they find themselves in.Even though the “real world” was slowly falling apart around Betty and her family between the Australia fires and COVID, they found their community online and have built an amazing project around it.

*Anonymity and Pseudonyms may be the future*

Betty considers herself semi doxxed. She has always been called Betty by all of her friends, but it is technically not her legal name.She chose to be anonymous because she wanted to separate her corporate persona from her online one as some corporate clients can be confused between the two.But what most people don’t realize is the safety of building a brand behind a pseudonym. Betty and Psych have 3 kids.as they moved into a space where there is a potential of a lot of money, they wanted to protect their family as much as possible.

“It's like the second identity, this alter ego that they can't have their colleagues or clients knowing about. And I'm seeing this happen more and more as people want to spend more time in web3.”

And on top of all of this, anonymity allows the ability to eliminate (or strengthen) potential biases and take down barriers that are prevalent in web2.Examples of these potential barriers are women entering male-dominated industries, the BIPOC community, LGBTQ+, etc.Betty is one of the thought leaders in this space and wants to make sure that the same issues in web2 don’t make it into web3.

“We all have that responsibility, it shouldn't just be me and a handful of other women and gender diverse people and people of color and indigenous people fighting for themselves, it needs to be everyone.”

*Investing in NFTs is like early-stage investing*

Alexis: “I look at these projects, and it's the vibes of the creators. It's their intention, their thoughtfulness, certainly the art and the thoughtfulness of the product. But then it's the community and who here has the sort of minimum viable community to do something that I think will be special in 10 years, not in two months, or 10 hours, but a decade?”

If you want to be an accredited investor in private markets, currently you have to either have a gross income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse or partner exceeding $300,000 for those years.This law creates barriers that don’t allow most individuals to participate in private investing.But NFTs break these barriers down because like for Deadfellaz, all you needed to get involved in the project was .025ETH and hit mint before it sold out.

*Building a team in web3*

As of recording, the Deadfellaz team was at 26 members including 3D artists, copywriters, project managers, narrative designers, Decentraland developers, and more.Most of this team is anonymous and Betty believes that she may never even see some of her mods even though she’s worked extremely close with them since the beginning of the project.

“The trust is there from the work that people have produced and the validation of their association with other people, like our Decentraland team, we've never met them. We've never seen them.”

But how do you pay anonymous people?Betty has the information for about 70% of the people on her team, but the rest are just usernames and wallets.Most teams and corpo...