What is Blockchain Bandicoots? With Armen Tamzarian (Inside an NFT Collection that's CRUSHING it)

Ty Smith0:03

What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Marketing Show. As always, I'm Ty Smith. So today we are discussing a pretty cool, interesting project that's building some cool stuff. We are speaking with Armen Tamzarian, the founder of a cool NFT project called Blockchain Bandicoots. So just because of the quality and depth that these guys are building into their NFT project, as well as a lot of the cool kind of marketing initiatives and things they have going on, I thought it might make for an interesting conversation. So we'll go through a little bit of just the backstory behind Blockchain Bandicoots, what it is, what has gotten them to where they are today, and then of course discuss some of the marketing side of things, both specific to Blockchain Bandicoots and then just more general to the present NFT world, especially from someone actively building in the space that's, in my opinion, super cool. All right, so welcome, Armen.

Armen Tamzarian1:03

Awesome. Thank you very much, Ty, for having me. Very excited.

Ty Smith1:05

Of course. So let's kick it off obviously with a pretty high-level overview of what Blockchain Bandicoots actually is. Obviously, NFT collection, I know there's a lot more to it. Every time I speak to you, there's just more and more depth that we unravel, so.

Armen Tamzarian1:15

Yeah, for sure. Well, I spoke to you almost a year ago now when I first started building, and now 12 months later, we're almost ready for launch. We have our presale launch on December 22nd and our public mint on December 26th, so it's right around the corner. What Blockchain Bandicoot is, it's an NFT collection, yes, but on top of that, everybody who mints the NFT will get our physical comic book. On top of that, it's going to be a motion comic, which you can watch chapter one on our YouTube right now. It's really exciting, very adventurous. We've scored it professionally. We have a professional theme song. I wrote the lyrics. They're awesome. On top of that, our main goal at the end of this project is, one, to give back to our community in every way possible. We have insane giveaways. Over the course of our roadmap, we'll be giving away $1 million, and at the end of it all, we'll have a full-fledged anime motion series, so full anime versus our motion comic, which is just slight animation with some cool music behind it.

Ty Smith2:16

Nice. Yeah, something that I found really interesting about the way you guys are building, and it's kind of similar in a sense to what Wanders is doing, and they've had a lot of success with it and then ended up just raising, I think, $2 million from Animoca Brands, is it's kind of like this NFT-empowered multimedia brand beyond just an NFT collection, which is what we were seeing a lot of last year. What kind of inspired you to make the collection? Was it something that predated the idea of an NFT being involved, or did you kind of know from the beginning that this was going to be an NFT blockchain-empowered project?

Armen Tamzarian3:01

So my entire life, I've always wanted to make a story. I've always loved action-adventure movies. I've always loved cool stories like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, anime, watching Dragon Ball Z as a kid, watching Naruto, One Piece, all of those type of Japanese anime have inspired me. So my entire life, I wanted to tell this story that people could follow along and go through the journey with the characters, see their character development. So about a year and a half ago, I said, 'I really want to make a comic.' So I started sketching very roughly this idea in my head. That didn't really go anywhere until I started getting into NFTs. So I got into NFTs just about a year and a half ago. I started flipping NFTs back and forth, making a little bit of money, and then I realized I don't want to be a flipper anymore. I want to make my own NFT project, something that's solid, that people can join in and feel like a community. So I ended up buying better projects like World of Women before it blew up, so I got pretty lucky with World of Women NFT. Once that blew up after their announcement with Madonna's manager taking over, I sold my NFT and took some profits from that, and there I was really able to fund my project. So then I was able to actually make Blockchain Bandicoots into a comic, get it professionally done, and bring my vision to life. And then from there, it spiraled out of control. From there, I wanted to make the full NFT project. I wanted to make it a motion comic. I wanted to score it professionally. I wanted to be a full-fledged anime, and then I said, 'How can I make my project a blue-chip project?' So for the last 12 months, we've just been building and building on top of this one idea that's essentially spiraled out of control. But because we've had so much time to build, we feel like now we can give this solid package that is almost unmatched in my eyes. This is my baby. I've been building this from the ground up, so I feel like in years to come, people will look back at Blockchain Bandicoot and say, 'This is a staple in the game.' They've prioritized their community. They've prioritized everything on the back end before launch. We're KYC'd, so I'm doxxed. People see my face. They know that my project is very transparent. They see my face, and that's kind of what motivates me, is just to make my project as good as it can be prior to launch.

Ty Smith5:29

So behind you, is that the comic book also?

Armen Tamzarian5:30

Yeah, I threw up a few comic books just on the back there. And then I was trying to, I have a ton of these posters. I was trying to unravel these posters, but they've been rolled up this whole time. So all of these are comic books, posters. These are items that you can get. With our Blockchain Bandicoot NFT project, we also have an accompanying project called Blockchain Bandicoot Items. So what this is, is that's where it brings the utility to our holders. So one, you get your Blockchain Bandicoot NFT. That's on the Ethereum blockchain. We have 5,000 NFTs. Then everybody who has an NFT will be airdropped a Blockchain Bandicoot Items NFT. Now, this is a collection of 5,000 NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. Each of these NFTs are different. We have Kari's Canvas, Poster Posse, Devon's Code, Kobe's Keepsakes, Vox Bandicoot, Corrupted Bandicoot NFTs. So what these are is, depending on what you get, it's what you get in real life. They could be crypto prizes. They could be a box of retro electronics, like the poster I just showed you. There's only 800, and there's four variants, so it makes for a very cool collectible. Blockchain Bandicoot Items in itself is a project that can stand up on its own two legs. But what I've done is basically combined my two ideas into one to make this ultimate mega project. So Blockchain Bandicoot Items is where you'll get the actual in-real-life gifts. And we've spent hours and hours with builders and developers at Perks. They've been great so far. They've helped us on the back end. They actually helped Cool Cats dish out their NFT comic books, and it's a great, safe way for holders to go through our website and token-gate their NFT, and then they can put in their address safely. That way, they're not just throwing their address through an email or another way like that. That's a huge staple in our project. There's so many things that we've made sure works before we're marketing, before we got to this marketing portion.

Ty Smith8:07

Yeah, I see because I'm going through the site, and I mean, first of all, the site looks awesome. It's probably better designed than 99% of other companies building in the space. But you've put tons of work into the art and just the layout, super on-brand. And then one thing I noticed was that you put a bunch of things that, in my opinion, trigger like, 'We're trying to build trust. We're a trustworthy team,' and that's something that's important to us, everyone being kind of doxxed, as far as I understand. And then walk me through this thing with Assure DeFi, the verification.

Armen Tamzarian8:25

Sure. So what Assure DeFi does is it's a company that you reveal your identity to. So as a builder, you have a responsibility to your community. If they're going to be people that are minting your NFTs, they're giving you their hard-working money to have a product. Just because it's an NFT and an NFT project doesn't mean that it's not an actual business. So these projects out there that have rugged people and taken their money, we take that very seriously. And what we wanted to do prior to our launch is show people that we're very transparent. You know who we are. And what Assure DeFi does is they know our identity. They classify themselves as the gold standard in verification. So they know my identity, my real identity. And if I ever rug the project, which is not going to happen because I'm going to be working on Blockchain Bandicoots for the rest of my life, regardless if we mint out within an hour or it takes a year, I'll be working on this idea and building on it for the rest of my life. But what they do is, if I ever go anywhere, you can contact them, and they work with you and the authorities and let you guys know my identity. That way, you guys can come after me legally and all that. And a lot of projects out there do not do that.

Ty Smith9:37

Yeah, no, I think you honestly are the first one that I've seen do that. It's definitely an interesting concept. To take a step back, I mean, obviously we spoke about the inspiration of the project and how the high-level project overview looks. What got you into Web3, crypto, blockchain in the beginning?

Armen Tamzarian10:13

So my roommate in university, this is dating us back like 10-plus years ago, he got into Bitcoin really early, would always tell me about it. He talked about the blockchain, and I was like, 'Okay, go away. This is silly.' And then years has gone by, and I've learned so much about it now, and it's here to stay, and it's not going anywhere. And on top of Bitcoin, there's the NFT aspect of Web3 and the blockchain and how it's basically this ledger that everybody has access to that can read what transactions has happened. And I've just fallen in love with Web3 and NFTs and the blockchain because in business, in Web2 business, you don't really know what you're getting. If you're doing business with a company, their website can look great, their products can look great, their staff can look awesome and trustworthy, but then once you've given you given them your money, they could rug you. They could not provide that product. What Web3 has done and what the blockchain has done for me at least is, if I'm working with a company and they provide their ETH address per se, you can see how much transactions they've done. You can see how much business they're doing, and that kind of provides transparency and trust that you want to work with this person because look at all this business that they've done. Mind you, some companies do provide multiple wallet addresses just to protect themselves, but that aspect of just it being so clear and concise is something that I've fallen in love with.

Ty Smith11:36

Yeah, I mean, obviously everything going on with the FTX thing, the fact that we can kind of, for the most part, to some extent at least, track all the wallet addresses and see who has what they say they have and who doesn't is a cool concept. But that's awesome. So to go back to what you guys are building, the comic book component. So it's interesting that we're seeing this trend, and I haven't seen it honestly, at least from my own eyes, yet, this concept of phygital, meaning you're buying into an NFT and then you're getting a physical component to it. From my own understanding, how does that work regarding like, I buy an NFT, how do I get the comic book?

Armen Tamzarian12:24

Perfect. So with our partnership at Perks, if you have an NFT, what we've done is build on, we have a secondary website that we haven't launched yet, but after we mint our NFTs, we're going to be releasing this website where you go in and you token-gate your NFT. So what that means is you connect your cryptocurrency wallet, and it allows you to access a comic book. So it allows you to get through a wall, and once you've got through that wall, you can enter in and check out your details. But people who don't have that NFT won't be able to get through the transaction process and put their details in. One other thing that we really like about Perks is that we also have a token checker on our website. So if somebody utilizes their NFT to redeem a physical comic book, if they sell it on OpenSea afterwards, the next person who buys that NFT will be able to check if that one has been redeemed or not. Because the last thing we want is for somebody to try and redeem their NFT and realize that the comic book has already been redeemed. So that is another huge factor that we really enjoy working with Perks.

Ty Smith13:34

Yeah, that's awesome. I got to, I guess, bring them on the podcast next. But that's a cool concept. I remember going through something similar with Bored Ape Yacht Club, getting like the hats and sweatshirts. I've got like a closet full of sweatshirts that are going for like $400 on eBay now.

Armen Tamzarian13:43

Yeah.

Ty Smith13:44

Awesome. Awesome. Very cool. There was, so I was going through the OpenSea listing and going through the website a little bit, and I saw like there's like a like an element symbol in a lot of the NFTs. What is that?

Armen Tamzarian14:15

So this is another staple that I think NFTs are going to incorporate in the future as well. I haven't seen any other NFT project do something like this aside from Gary V's Book Games. So in our NFT, we have an element symbol on the top left corner of every single NFT. So I was a huge fan and still am a huge fan of poker and Texas Hold'em. I love that race to collect the perfect set. I love the luck of it, and I love that competitive aspect to it. So I wanted to create something like this in an NFT project. So one other leg of our project that makes it different is that there's not just the NFTs, there's not just the comic books and the motion comic and the items and all that. We have an element symbol that separates the type of bandicoot that you're getting. So almost like Pokemon, when you have the fire Pokemon and water and ground Pokemon, we have water, fire, ether, wind, and grass. So these five elements you can collect. What we're doing for 36 months straight once we mint out is giving $10,000 prizes for three years straight. So right away, we're wanting to tell people we're here for the long haul. We're not going anywhere. And what this does is create a competitive match game. Every month, we're going to tweet out a link. In that link will be a 3D world that holders will be able to go through and try and find the clue. So when I say a 3D world, I actually mean on your phone or on your computer, you could click the link, and you're going to have to search for our clue monthly. In the clue, it'll hint to what you should hold in your wallet. So the clue will pop up saying you should hold three fire and two water bandicoots. Then people will go to OpenSea and try and trade to collect the perfect set, the three fire, two water. And only the first person that collects the perfect set wins $10,000. And this will create this competitive match game month after month after month because people aren't going to know what bandicoots to hold in their wallet. This is very unique because you can only hold five bandicoots in your wallet, just like how you can only hold five cards in your hand in poker. Same concept. So that is something that puts us aside from other projects. Additionally, after the three years of $10,000 prizes, we can continue to do match games forever as long as there's trading done on OpenSea. So we've listed that on our website. As long as there's trading and we have that commission, there will be gifts being sent out. We'll list out the clues every single month. And they're not going to be $10,000 prizes, but they could be a signed copy of the comic book or a signed poster or a lanyard or a hat. And I think this is really cool because it can grow as the years go by. And after three years are done, we can just keep building on it forever.

Ty Smith17:21

Yeah, that's definitely an interesting concept. It's you've combined so many aspects of like, I think of like Pokemon Go plus rewards that are like actual rewards. I don't know, that's pretty cool. Was that your idea, the giveaway?

Armen Tamzarian17:29

Yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Everything in this project is my idea. I've had help from friends and family and our team, but essentially I'm like the creative mind here. And sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy because I wake up in the middle of the night and think of something I want to implement. And I thought of something today actually that I'm like, 'Could I squeeze that in in the next 10 days before our pre-mint?' And I just told myself I need to back down a little bit and slow down because we already have multiple projects on the go. We have Blockchain Bandicoots, which is releasing. Everyone who gets the Blockchain Bandicoot, they're going to get a Blockchain Bandicoot Item. So that's two projects right there. Then we have a Corrupted Bandicoot series coming out, and everyone who mints a Blockchain Bandicoot will get a Corrupted Bandicoot NFT. What these NFTs are, are comic book style artwork. So they're going to be the same as our comic book here. So that's a perfect example. In that style, we're going to have NFTs, and they're solely Corrupted Bandicoots. So in our story, what happens is this villain named Corruption comes into the blockchain world, Borokugen, and starts corrupting bandicoots all around the world, creating corrupted bandicoots. So I wanted to dish out these corrupted bandicoots to everyone who's a holder of our main project as like a thank you. So really, by minting a Blockchain Bandicoot NFT, you're getting three NFTs for the price of one. You're getting your Blockchain Bandicoot, you're getting your Blockchain Bandicoot Item, and you're getting a Corrupted Bandicoot. On top of that, we have one more project that we're going to release after launch, and I have to hold some of my ideas back until after we've minted out.

Ty Smith19:24

Got it. Okay. Yeah, you're doing it probably the right way because a lot of companies, especially in the past year, they were so quick to just like, 'We want to get to market ASAP,' to take advantage of like a hot market. We're going to create this NFT, and then we're kind of build the utility and build the ecosystem afterwards. You're kind of like, I see like it as approaching it from the other side. Like, we've already built this whole ecosystem. We're just ready to give away the keys now to to access it. So it's kind of kind of cool. Do you think that's the right way to go? Was that by design? Was that intentional?

Armen Tamzarian19:40

It was not intentional, but I would do it this way over and over again in a heartbeat because everything is done on the back end. Everything is done art-wise. Everything is done comic book-wise, and we're ready. We're actually already making chapter two. It's amazing.

Ty Smith20:18

I don't know when you sleep, but that doesn't surprise me.

Armen Tamzarian20:19

I know. I probably am pumping out like 80 to 90 hours between my Web2 and this job. Because this really is a full-time job, like creating the story, working on the website. Thankfully, my brother-in-law is a coder, so he's really, really helping me on that end. And I have just a really good support system to build this project. But it's something that brings me joy, and that's why I had a few AMAs this week, and one of the harder questions was, 'What are you going to do if it doesn't mint out in the first day?' And my answer was very positive because it doesn't matter if it mints out within 6 hours or 12 months because this is something that is, the foundation is so strong that it's going to eventually sell once people get eyes on it. That's the biggest challenge, is just getting eyes on it. So to answer your question, we wouldn't change anything. We're glad that everything is done from launch because we see roadmaps out there, and no disrespect to anybody who does their roadmaps this way, but in their roadmap that says, 'Okay, step one, we're going to launch our website. Step two, we're going to create a social media page.' I think all of that stuff should be done and ready to go if you're going to start marketing a project. You want to show people and the investors that you have put solid time into this. So when you look at our roadmap, it starts right like our second step is like mint out. So and then everything after that, it shows very strategically, okay, once we mint once we minted 50% of bandicoots, then we can dish out Blockchain Bandicoot Items because we'll have the funds for that. Then once we've minted out totally, then the element challenges begin because we'll have the funds for that. And it's done very strategically in a way that we essentially cannot fail because we put the time into it. We've thought about it, and this is the proper way to do it.

Ty Smith22:19

Got it. So I mean, that kind of naturally segues into the two other questions that I wanted to go through. One being, obviously, this podcast and what I spend all day doing is Web3 and largely NFT-focused marketing. So in the journey of where you guys have explored so far, what kind of takeaways have you learned that you can kind of share with our audience regarding like the marketing of an NFT project like as it stands today in current market conditions and things like that?

Armen Tamzarian22:37

Sure. My suggestion is just to slowly start reaching out to people, not a full-fledged marketing campaign right from the beginning, but something that we've done is we haven't started marketing until last minute because we've been so focused on building. So definitely as you're building, you want to reach out to people naturally and, what's the word I'm looking for, organically, more organically, let people know, 'Hey, this is what we're building. This is what we're doing.' But don't try and reach out to the masses. And also, not to contradict what my last statement was, but you want to let people know what you're building. Just like what I've done over the past several months, yes, we just started marketing recently, but I have posted pictures of myself working on Photoshop or working on me editing some of my videos. I've pumped out some YouTube videos to say, 'What is Blockchain Bandicoots all about? How do you fund your crypto wallet? How do you set up MetaMask?' and things like this, just showing you showing people that you're in the world, you're in the space is very important.

Ty Smith23:43

Got it. Any things that you see current projects doing that you think is probably a mistake that you do differently? You don't have to call anyone out by name, but.

Armen Tamzarian23:49

That's a good question. Anything that I think is done poorly.

Ty Smith23:52

Yeah, what kind of trends do you see as far as whether it's marketing, whether it's project setup, that in your in your opinion are not the proper way of doing? We spoke about one, which is just kind of going to market before the substance is really built out, which you're, you know, really doing the exact opposite of. Anything else?

Armen Tamzarian24:28

I'm just going to stick with that answer there because I've had people reach out to me to do collabs, and I am open to do collabs. However, I know how hard I've worked on my project, and when I see the projects that have reached out to me not have that solid foundation first, it makes me not want to do that collab with them. But that's that's great that they're grinding and trying to build their community, but I I do think that there should be the meat and potatoes first before you start trying to sell a product that isn't even a product yet.

Ty Smith24:49

Got it. Okay, that's actually an interesting little like marketing, Web3 marketing lesson right there, which is like, in your mind, when a project reaches out to you to do some kind of like cross-collaboration, cross-promotion, what factors are you primarily looking at? Are there any red flags that immediately say, 'Probably not a good fit'?

Armen Tamzarian25:25

So initially, what I'm looking for is to see a founder that's enthusiastic about their project. I want to see somebody that really values what they're doing and wants to go for it. I don't want to see somebody that, for an example, during another AMA, I heard that this founder was asked, 'What would you do if this project doesn't mint out?' And his answer was, 'I'd probably just give up.' So that answer would not be okay with me because for people building something on this scale, it should be just like you're taking your job in real life. You should be taking it very seriously.

Ty Smith25:53

Outside of your own collection, what what NFT collections are you into?

Armen Tamzarian25:56

So I love Gary V. Gary V is awesome. I went to VeeCon last year. It was a really great experience. So VFriends, I'm very interested in VFriends. I went to VeeCon last year. I met Gary V. I actually gave him one of my comic books. I told him what I was building, and he said he would take a look at it, which is pretty awesome. And then fast-forward a few months later, actually just recently, a couple months ago, he liked one of my tweets. So I was like over, so I had just worked my Web2 job, I came home, and then I was working on Blockchain Bandicoots for several hours. Then I'm like, 'Okay, I'll send out one tweet.' I sent out the tweet, and then he liked it. And I'm like, 'Oh, I'm working for like four more hours now. Got to get that grind in,' because it was just so motivating. Like, he was able to see my post and like it and like see my profile. And I I always thought like, 'Did he remember me giving him my comic book? Did he remember our conversation that we had?' So he's kind of like an inspiration to me because, you know, you see his face, he's doxxed, you know who Gary V is. He's got this awesome project that he's giving back to the community all the time. He's very active in his Discord. And that's something I strive to make Blockchain Bandicoots. I want in years to come, I want people to look back and say, 'Okay, Blockchain Bandicoots, yeah, those are right up there with with VFriends, with World of Women. Yep, they all kind of mesh together.' And I think we can do it if we just work hard enough. So to answer your question, VFriends is sick. I always was a fan of Shiboshis because they're just cute. So Shiboshis, what I really like, World of Women, and those would be the main three for now.

Ty Smith27:50

Okay. Yeah, so on a parting note, where can we, where can listeners find you online and Blockchain Bandicoots and just follow the the journey?

Armen Tamzarian27:56

You can follow our journey at www.blockchainbandicoots.com, or you can go to our Twitter at official_bcbc, or from there, you could also add us on Telegram, which is Blockchain Bandicoots. So any one of those avenues is great. But I would suggest just going to our website, blockchainbandicoots.com, and then from there, we have all of our links at the bottom, our Twitter, our Instagram, our Discord. You definitely want to jump in our Discord because I check that like all the time, and I'm always responding as as fast as I can. And yeah, our Twitter is also a great bet because we're posting on that all the time, too.

Ty Smith28:46

Okay, awesome. Well, Armen, as always, great to chat, and thanks for being here.

Armen Tamzarian28:49

Awesome. Thank you very much, Ty. I really appreciate it. This was a blast.