NFTs — own experience
About a year ago, I became so intrigued with NFTs, that I decided to try it myself.
In this post I’ll try to cover:
- Why NFTs got my interest
- How I created, promoted and sold NFTs
- My results
- Lessons learned
1. Why NFTs got my interest
NFTs got my interest from 2 perspectives: Product Owner’s and Illustrator’s
- Product ownership curiosity
I’ve always been a curious person who enjoys experimenting with new things and learning how things are made.
I was just “hungry” for the information and wanted to know everything about how it all works and the future it holds. - Illustrator perspective
I’m an art enthusiast. I’ve started painting/illustrating since being a little kid and was always fascinated by the greatest artists’s work. You may probably know that historically, being a “artist” was not a “highly rewarded/paid” job. Most of the famous artists lived in poverty, weren’t be able to sell their arts at all or were forced to sell their works to studios. I was never doing that as a source of income, it was always a hobby to me. But when I learned that some artists are making thousands of dollars, in some cases millions of dollars just by selling their digital arts as NFTs, I got two sparkling stars picking out of my eyes like in this emoji 🤩
2. How to create, promote and sell NFTs
Creating NFTs
Creating NFTs is simple, if your goal is to merely “make anything."
You may just create digital image (photo, illustration, painting and etc.), audio or video file as the way you usually do (using your regular tools like photoshop, illustrator and etc.)
In order to learn/fail fast I decided to edit and use my existing digital illustrations, instead of starting from a scratch.
Selling NFTs
In order sell NFTs I had to:
1) have a digital wallet
2) have cryptocurrency in my digital wallet
3) register on NFT marketplaces
4) mint my artworks to NFT marketplace
5) list them for a sale
6) find / reach buyers
Digital wallet
I dowloaded one of the most popular — Metamask wallet app to my phone, and added Metamask extension to Google Chrome browser.
Registering on NFT marketplace
After researching a bit I chose two NFT marketplaces to register on: OpenSea and Foundation
The reasons behind my choices:
OpenSea:
- Was easier to get to the Platform
You didn’ need a special invitation. Just an easy sign up - Low platform and transaction fees
OpenSea uses “lazy minting” which postpones the actual minting to a later stage — after the sell of NFT - Bigger community
Foundation:
- More exclusive content
Only invited artists could sell their arts there. It was like an art gallery or auction house - More chances to be noticed by buyers
It was not “crowded” with “trashy” arts like in OpenSea
Back in time Foundation was a “closed” — invite only platform. Only the artist who sold their artworks there could invite other people to sell. I used both OpenSea and Foundation, but got real sales from Foundation only 🤑
Minting artworks
Shown for test purposes
- Register on Foundation and connect a wallet (in my case MetaMask)
- Click on “Create” button right near the profile picture
- Create a collection
- Give it a name and symbol that will be shown on the list
- Click “Continue”
- Confirm transaction & gas fee on Metamask browser extension
7. In the collection’s page click on “Mint” button and upload our artwork
8. Give it a nice name and description and create on “Mint” button
9. Confirm the transaction with our Metamask browser extension
10. Once confirmed our NFT will be minted! But…
Listing NFT for sale
After we mint your NFT to the platform we have to list them, so that buyers can collect them.
There 3 ways to do it:
- Setting “buy now” price
- we set a fixed priced we are ready to sell our artwork. Buyers may instantly buy our NFTs with that fixed price
2. Settling a reverse auction
- we set a minimum amount that we’d accept for NFT and wait for a collector to kickstart a 24 hour countdown where the highest bidder wins.
3. Accepting direct offers
Any buyer may come with an offer to our NFT. Once our artwork receives an offer we get 24 hours to accept it.
Select listing “type” and list the NFT!
In my practice I mixed 2 features (buy now & reverse auction) and used them in parallel. I’ve not received any direct offers yet.
Once we list our NFT, Foundation notifies our followers about it, also publishes it in “Browse” section. We may also share it to Twitter or any other platform as well to get noticed!
About gas fees
You have to know that you pay gas fees even if you just “breathe” on Fondation ⛽️
You’ll will probably pay these “gas fees” on Foundation to:
- Create a collection
- Mint an NFT
- List an NFT
- To change price
- To “burn” your NFT
- To place a bid on someone’s NFT
Note: Cost of gas fees are not fixed. Gas fee amount fluctuates a lot based on supply and demand on the blockain network. Gas fees are at their highest peak during the working hours (EST). Gas fees are the lowest during weekends 2–3AM (EST). I used “gas calculator” to check current gas prices and saved a lot on fees
Promoting NFTs and building a community
This is the part where I struggled a lot.
- I didn’t have an international community or a good follower base in any of my social network account 🌎
- Most of my social media accounts were private and for friends&family who were far away from the NFT world 👨👩👧👦
- I wasn’t using Twitter or Discord or Reddit at all 🙅🏽♀️
- I didn’t have a “budget” to promote my NTFs or buy other artists NFTs💰
- I didn’t have a person or a team to help building a community 👯♀️
- I listed single artworks, not collectibles and I wasn’t consistent. As I was an unknown, inconsistent, “non-visionary” artist there were no point of buying my artworks 🥹 (swallowing my pride)
But I though that I should at least try to start from somewhere:
- I started uploading my artworks, using all the possible NFT hashtags
- I started following NFT creators, supporting their artworks, commenting and just getting in touch with them
- I followed all the NFT related hashtags and pages so that I don’t miss a thing
- I asked feedbacks from some NFT creators about my artworks via direct messages
- Started experimenting with Instagram/Twitter ads with a low budget to gain followers
2. Registered on Discord
- and… never used it. What a shame 🫣
As a result, 1 of the artists I reached via Twitter actually checked my NTFs and bought 2 of them!
He even promoted some of them via his Twitter account.
And if you are lucky enough like me, you’ll get a magic email and notification from Foundation 🎉:
4. Lessons learned
- Don’t be afraid to reach people for help
Most people will probably reject or don’t respond, but one or two will probably help you! Even if all of them reject or don’t respond to you, at least you’ll know that “you have tried this option too and it didn’t worked well”
2. Have public accounts and build your audience
Even if you are not a “social” person like me, having a big audience will benefit you a lot in some cases. At least to create awareness about your new products, businesses or activities.
3. DYOR
Everyone’s journey is individual. Before starting your journey in NFTs or in web3 in general do your “homework”, don’t just follow somebody’s steps.
Remember that, cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and the responsibility is on you.
4. NFTs require dedication
It may look like a fun thing to do, but if you want to be successful you have to dedicate your time, energy and money in order to be successful.
👉🏽 Foundation / OpenSea / All
Thats all!
