Pudgy Penguins
About Pudgy Penguins
Pudgy Penguins is an NFT project on the Ethereum blockchain with an undisguised ambition: become the premier web3 IP & one of the biggest IP in the world. As Luca Netz said, “Pudgy Penguins is more than just an NFT project – it is a transcendent IP brand that is providing a community of both crypto-native and non-crypto native consumers with enjoyable products, experiences, and content”, aiming to “introduce web3 to the public in a simple, seamless way”.
How? Let’s dive into the Pudgy Penguins journey following a chronological sequence of their main achievements & milestones.
Before the Buyout
July 2021: Pudgy Penguins mints out a collection of 8888 NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain.
August 2021: a 2nd collection, Pudgy Presents, is released as a free-to-claim NFT for Pudgy Penguins holders. Renamed later, there are 7394 Pudgy Rods today.
December 2021: Lil Pudgys are released as a collection of 22,222 NFTs: 8888 are claimable by OG holders while 13,334 are minted in a public sale structured as a dutch auction.
January 2022: 9x9x9 (HGE) discloses the team refused a takeover offer of 888 ETH.
A new Era
April 2022: Luca Netz acquires Pudgy Penguins for 750 ETH, or $2,5M, believing the Brand behind the Pudgy Penguin character had one of the most universal IP in web3, hence the highest upside potential in the space. Within the first weeks, the team conducted multiple ideation sessions with the community in the Inner Igloo (discord VC) and started laying the foundations & first directions to build the IP, releasing a new Roadmap, the “Quest map”, as well as a new Brand logo.
April 2022: Pudgy Penguins is verified on Instagram. A dedicated team is set up to relentlessly create content that will appeal to the masses, aiming to “spread good vibes & positivity”. Today (as of June 2023), the account grew from 20K to 570K+ followers, and has reached more than 500M accounts. A breakthrough moment for its exponential growth was the removal of the word “NFT” from the profile, opening the doors of the Brand & its content to the public.
May 2022: Pudgy Media is released. Its goal is to become “a hub for everything in the community”. Meant to be the first place for every new holder to learn about the Pudgy Penguin ecosystem, it now regroups most of the utilities that cater to the web3 audience: a hub for the community, “One Huddle”, & its sub communities, scheduled events, videos & podcasts, GIFs & Memes, Tools, …
June 2022: the Pudgy Penguins Marketplace is officially launched, allowing collectors to safely trade any of the 3 collections, aggregating all available marketplaces, while offering lower fees than any other.
June 2022: Pudgy Penguins GIFs are available on Giphy and can be used on various social media. Most GIFs are created by a dedicated team working full time for Pudgy Penguins.
July 2022: the community can now submit GIF ideas on Pudgy Media & the team will create them, featuring the holder’s Pudgy Penguin or Lil Pudgy, a first step into building individual Pudgy Penguin IPs. Today (as of June 2023), 3K GIFs have been created, totaling 3,7B views.
July 2022: partnership announcement with PMI for the upcoming toy line; Pudgy Toys will be licensed from the community.
July 2022: Pudgy Penguins introduces Soulbound Tokens for its 1 year anniversary. The Soulbound token aims to recognize a holder’s impact on the Pudgy Penguin’s ecosystem and who participates in the brand’s initiatives. Soulbound tokens are a type of NFT that is uniquely connected or “bound” to a specific person or entity, and can’t be bought, sold or transferred between different owners. Today, they can be earnt – for ex. – using Lil Pudgy Bridge (see hereafter) or by winning MVP, Most Valuable Penguin of the month (nominations by the community from the community)
December 2022: first episode of Building in Public is released, a Youtube behind the scenes show showcasing how the team operates and prepares for its main events & launches.
January 2023: Lil Pudgy Bridge partnership announcement with LayerZero. Lil Pudgys are now able to travel between different blockchains: from Ethereum to Polygon, Arbitrum or BNB chain. Every Lil Pudgy has the ability to choose between a few prominent blockchains to live on.
February 2023: partnership announcement with Retail Monster who will distribute the Pudgy toy line on the shelves of worldwide retailers while serving as a licensing agent, aiming to provide licensing opportunities with world-class brands.
April 2023: the Pudgy Penguin Brand Bible & Pudgy Community pitch deck are released. Designed to support holders & creators leveraging the IP of their NFTs, they also provide a set of Brand Guidelines aiming to ensure the Pudgy Penguin Brand & IP is consistent across all endeavors & touchpoints.
May 9th 2023: Pudgy Penguins closes a seed round led by investment firm 1kx raising $9M.
May 18th 2023: Pudgy Toys, the The Trojan Horse to onboard millions of users to NFTs, are released on Amazon, and are sold out in 2 days (20,000+ toys, $500K in revenues).
Pudgy Toys are more than just cute figurines & plushies. Each toy comes with a birth certificate that users can scan to enter Pudgy World: “a digital experience built around the fundamentals of web3”. Pudgy World is built on Polygon. Users can personalize their soulbound Digital Pudgy Penguin with 4 to 6 traits they randomly collected through a loot box after scanning a QR code from their toy – minting their own NFT in a seamless way and for free – before playing the games. Traits can also be purchased or sold on the Pudgy World Marketplace. The ultimate goal behind Pudgy World is to create a place for users to enjoy, create meaningful social connections and have fun together through the games that will be released on a recurrent basis. Users will therefore actually get their first NFT and be educated about the benefits of a decentralized blockchain with the friendliest UI/UX.
May 2023: Pudgy Swap is launched and allows holders to safely trade P2P with 0 fees & 0 royalties.
May 26th 2023: Pudgy Penguins releases its first collector, the “Shark Suit”, on the NTWRK. Available in 150 editions, the drop is sold out in 10 seconds. Each collectible comes with an NFC ship that allows its owner to receive a unique Souldbound token.
June 9th 2023: the second limited edition collector, the “Banana Suit”, is released on the NTWORK and breaks a new record for the platform: sold out in 7 seconds.
June 13th-15th 2023: Pudgy Penguins is the first web3 brand to be showcased with a booth at Las Vegas Licensing Expo.
September 26th 2023: Pudgy Penguins enters a Brave New World. Pudgy Penguins is officially the first web3 brand, and certainly one of the youngest overall, to retail its line of Pudgy Toys & Plushies in over 2,000 Wall Mart Stores in the USA.
To be released: Pudgy Penguins will soon launch Overpass, Pudgy Penguins Licensing solution (more details in Utilities section)
Future Plans
While the team has not disclosed yet how & when they will implement the next steps of their “Quest map”, Luca Netz shared in a recent keynote, published the day of the seed round announcement, how they aim to build the next bricks of the Pudgy Penguin IP, not only widening the distribution of Pudgy Toys and releasing new products, but as well venturing into the entertainment industry through Gaming & Movies.
Pudgy Penguins as a company has two goals: building the Pudgy Penguins brand at scale, and empowering community members to partake in the journey along with the company.
One Huddle
Pudgy Penguin holders have access to a “Community of Builders”, the PengPalMafia, and therefore have the opportunity to build their network & connect with experts covering most web3 sectors.
Additionally, holders can obviously take part in various events & experiences (IRL or digital) organized by the Pudgy Penguin team as well as its Regional Hubs (Asia, USA, NYC, Europe & more).
Last but not least, they have the possibility to grow their Personal Brand & Digital Identity on social media by having GIFs & memes created with their own NFTs.
Licensing Opportunities
The 2nd major utility for Pudgy Penguin & Lil Pudgy holders is the possibility to access licensing opportunities. Holders have the opportunity to license the IP of their NFT(s) through 2 main avenues:
- Licensing deals negotiated & managed by the Pudgy Penguin brand. It materializes with a share of the royalties generated from those revenue streams. For example, 16 Pudgy Penguin NFTs were included in the licensing deal for the recent release of the Pudgy Toys. The exact licensing process is still to be finetuned, yet it was mentioned that the team would now proceed with upfront payments to streamline the process & avoid the complexity of having royalties split between different holders if a licensed NFT changes hand in the middle of a deal.
- Licensing deals directly managed by the holder itself, with the support of the Pudgy Community Pitch Deck & the Brand Bible that were designed by the Pudgy Penguin team to support builders & creators leverage their IP
Note: it is only possible to license the OG Pudgy Penguin and Lil Pudgy’s NFTs. Pudgy Rods will serve as a multiplier (booster) for upcoming licensing deals.
Overpass: Pudgy Penguins Licensing Solution
“Overpass solves licensing in web3, the web3 way” (Luca Netz).
It starts from a conviction from the Pudgy Penguin team: not every single holder has the skills, ability & time to monetize their IP. There’s simply too much friction when licensing IP in web3, being too complex and too expensive. It’s therefore the responsibility of the Brand to create the foundations, product & content in order to share the value & license with each other.
The Overpass technology will first be available for Pudgy Penguins holders, before potentially opening to other collections.
More details will be added upon official release.
| Team Members | Role |
|---|
Luca Netz – CEO & Co-owner
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luca-s-a13508192/
Peter Lobanov – CCO & Co-owner
https://twitter.com/chefgoyardi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-lobanov/
Lorenzo Melendez – President & CTO
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenzomelendez/
Jennifer McGlone – CLO
https://twitter.com/empathyandip
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-mcglone-ab98858/
Dr. Kaizu – COO
Foreword: I have been following Pudgy Penguins for a few months now, and recently decided to take the plunge and buy my first and only ETH NFT a month ago as I resonate with their Brand Building strategy and wanted to take part in the journey… And needless to add that I love penguins.
Why? Let’s dive.
First, from a pure web3 standpoint, I believe Pudgy Penguins covers all the 3 pillars for a successful NFT project to build a sustainable and meaningful Brand leveraged by a vibrant loyal Community (for more details, link to my previous article here). It is actually one of the few blue chip projects that tick all the boxes:
- The Brand Vision & Mission are meaningful & universally appealing: “Embodying love, empathy, and compassion, the Pudgy Penguins are a beacon of good vibes and positivity for everyone” (Luca Netz)
- The Founders & the Team are stacked and have a proven success track record in past endeavors.
- Their Content creation is unmatched, whether it is “corporate” (top notch animations for official communications), in social media on Instagram, Giphy & Twitter, or for the holders through all the GIFs & Memes created daily.
- From an Art perspective, I’m obviously biased but I do agree with Luca when he states that the Pudgy Penguins is the number 1 cute character on the blockchain, and potentially the most universal IP in the space
- From a Holder Benefits’ perspective, both the tangibles & intangibles are perfectly covered
Second, while it may seem confusing & overwhelming at first, all the initiatives that the team has shipped in the last 12 months actually play a complementary role in building the different layers of the Brand, addressing the different steps of the Consumer Journeys of both the Web3 NFT collectors as well as the general public.
It’s a well orchestrated symphony that allows the team to successfully run 2 complementary verticals at the same time:
1. Web3 playbook: build a successful Web3 Project with relevant utilities for the holders
2. Mainstream Trojan Horse: grow the Brand Awareness beyond web3
1. The Web3 Playbook
Luca Netz & the team are ready to do everything it takes to be successful in web3. One can’t deny they genuinely care about their holders and take the mantra “building with the community & for the community” to the letter:
- Awareness: creating all the conditions, ecosystem & tools for Pudgys to connect with each other, make the most of the Pudgy Penguin Network and grow their audience on social media, as a brand & as individual Pengus
- Consumers: supporting the creators & builders willing to leverage & monetizing their Penguins’ IP
- Brand Lovers: constantly recognizing the contributions of valuable community members, and regularly organizing ideation sessions in the Inner Igloo (Discord VC) where holders can come on stage & share ideas, suggestions or ask questions directly to the team.
- NFT buyers: creating a safe & trusted environment for holders to buy, sell or trade their penguins
2. The Mainstream Trojan Horse
The first step to building a powerful IP is to grow the Awareness of the Brand & its Love Character.
While their success on building relevant content for the masses is undeniable looking at the numbers of Instagram & Giphy, the recent launch of the Pudgy Toys hides several strategic moves that will set the path for the future:
- The launch of Pudgy Toys was only advertised on Twitter (ie to the web3 community) yet resulted in an unprecedented achievement: #1 trending on Amazon, sold out in 2 days. This will undoubtedly open doors and facilitate negotiations with the biggest retailers in the world.
- As Luca Netz said: “The kids today will be the ones spearheading the digital revolution”. They are usually the ones adopting new technologies the fastest. Therefore, offering kids a fun & seamless way to experience NFTs with Pudgy Toys & Pudgy World is a brilliant way to start onboarding them to web3.
- Another pain point the team unlocked is the Gas Fees for Pudgy World: they negotiated with Polygon to cover all the gas fees of minting the Soulbound Digital Penguins, making the experience even more seamless for the public
Future challenges
a. Mainstream launch
The first obvious challenge will be to release the Pudgy Toys to the public so as to validate the product & associated experience actually appeal to the masses. It won’t be a “make it or break it” event, yet will have a strong impact on the perception of the brand, both in web3 & with the retailers who will sell the toys.
Same logic applies for future drops, whether it’s a game, a movie, or another consumer product, the appeal of the Pudgy Penguin IP will be built on the successes (and potential failures) of all these bricks.
b. It’s a long term play
Building an IP is undoubtedly one of the longest plays in the NFT ecosystem (see my article here for more details on the IP business model). The patience required often diverges from the fast paced environment of web3 (the attention economy), where holders expect announcements & news every other day or week.
c. Licensing opportunities
Buying from the sole ambition of generating royalties from one’s Penguin might lead to deception.
There are approx 30,000 NFTs (8K OG Pudgy Penguins + 22K Lil Pudgys) which are eligible to be licensed. Opportunities will be scarce, both in time & quantity, at least at the beginning.
The day the Brand reaches the levels of its benchmarks (Pokemon, Hello Kitty, etc.), there’s no doubt that there will be plenty of opportunities for those who will want to invest the required time & efforts to seize those opportunities, but as mentioned earlier, such powerful IPs have not been built overnight.