Author: sleepy.mid
First of all, I really want to thank the NFT bull market sparked by the Penguin TGE. Although I didn't receive many airdrops, and the floor price of my Little Ghost NFT didn't see a significant increase, the changes it brought to the entire Little Ghost community are more meaningful. I saw the awakening of community awareness, and I am deeply moved. At this moment, my hands are even trembling as I type on the computer, and time seems to have rewound back to three years ago.
I want to share some of my true feelings through this article, take off the mask, and tell you all how we have gone through these past few years, and where we are going in the future.
First, I need to sincerely apologize to the family members in the community. We have not been synchronizing our progress and plans with the community for too long, to the extent that the team has been extremely busy but the community is not aware of it, and the community wants to help but doesn't know what the team is lacking. Our project will continue, and in the future, we will share more about the project's progress, so that the community can also participate and contribute their efforts to drive the project forward.
The team has recently undergone a relatively large adjustment. We didn't have any beef, it's just that due to the pressure on the company's cash flow, we had no choice but to do so. So now is the time when we urgently need the support of the community family.
For about the last one or two years, we have been constantly talking about financing, but the result has been constant setbacks. I can say very directly that many of the products we have done are for the purpose of financing, such as ManeSTUDIO. When we say we want to do culture and IP, they say you need to have a product, otherwise we don't know what we're investing in; when we bring out a product, they say the track is not good and you need to change the narrative; when we change the narrative and make a product, they say you need data; when we have a certain amount of data, they say the market is not good; when the market picks up, they say the main funds are now investing in the secondary market.
Of course, this is not a portrait of all investors. I have also met some very sincere investors who will tell us very precisely where we need to improve and why they can't invest this time, but hope we can keep communicating and hopefully cooperate next time. There are also some investors who bought Little Ghost NFTs and became family members after hearing our pitch, telling us they are trying to promote it, but can't convince the big boss, but they strongly support us and we can ask them for help anytime. Unfortunately, there are not many such people, but fortunately we have all become friends.
About the business
Indeed, ManeSTUDIO is a product we brought out for the purpose of financing, and it was developed under compulsion. But something like CutUp was actually due to our misjudgment, which made it impossible to develop. I don't want to keep hiding and forcibly explaining it. I want to openly admit that the overall launch of CutUp was too hasty. We didn't run through the upstream and downstream, misjudged the demand of the web3 community for "neutral" cultural peripherals, and ultimately led to problems such as production capacity not keeping up, production costs not coming down, and sales channels not opening up. Although I think the product quality is up to standard, as a brand, we have done very poorly. We will open source ManeSTUDIO, and in a while we will do an event for CutUp to give away the accumulated inventory to everyone. We will streamline our product line and fully focus on IP.
For IP building, we will also try new models starting next year.
Let's talk about why we can't continue with the model of the past two years.
The first reason is the continued deterioration of the overall consumer market. If you're not All in web3 and you're still paying attention to your real life, you must be able to feel this. Basically, all brands are cutting their marketing budgets, with some cutting by half and some even canceling all marketing activities for next year. Some brands that had already booked cooperation with us also temporarily informed us that they would not do it, which has had a huge impact on our overall rhythm.
The second reason is that although the model of the past two years has accumulated a very rich brand collaboration case for us, in terms of revenue, it is difficult for it to be of much help to the company. According to the past cooperation model, we don't pay the brand fee to do the collaboration, we need to cooperate with high-profile brands to increase the value of the IP, and we need to make money from the brand side. These three constitute an Blockchain Trilemma.
We originally planned to co-create and launch a bakery brand with OUTA as the main character for convenience stores, and if everything went well, everyone would be able to buy our baked products in thousands of convenience stores in China by the end of November. But now the launch date has been postponed again and again, and we can only show you two pictures first. This matter is still in progress, but the progress will be relatively slow.
First, let me answer a question.
"Is the project still going on?"
Yes, we are still continuing to do it.
The OUTA game will see a wave of content updates around Christmas. Previously, the game team said that if we update a little content, it would be a waste of time to release a separate package, so we have accumulated some content to be updated this time. And the workflow of this part is being optimized, so in the future, we should be able to update it bit by bit.
So what are our plans for the future?
First, our goal is still to build IP, with Little Ghost as the core and OUTA surrounding it.
The next step, we hope to use small games as a carrier to promote and operate the IP. What needs to be emphasized and explained is that the decision point we are entering is "small games", not "TON", "TG" and so on. Low investment cost + viral spread opportunities are what we value.
The switch of OUTA to the TG ecosystem is a temporary decision, and in the future it will definitely not be limited to this. As a slow-paced placement game, it is not suitable for the TG ecosystem, and we are not satisfied with its current performance in the TG ecosystem. We are currently cooperating with Web2 overseas game publishing companies, who are very supportive of our game, and plan to use Web2 distribution channels to more specifically capture more players. The publishing companies will use more Web2, more systematic and professional traffic acquisition methods to bring OUTA to the attention of hundreds of millions or even thousands of millions of Web2 game players.
We are also developing another text adventure casual game with Little Ghost as the main character, and it will accompany OUTA on the adventure. The development progress is over half, and we plan to launch it around February next year. Similarly, we will cooperate with Web2 game publishing companies to publish and promote it on a large scale on the Web2 platform. After the game is launched overseas, we will also start negotiating with domestic game publishing companies, trying to get it listed in the domestic market as well. We hope this model can bring us a larger user scale and higher revenue level, and if it is successful, we will continue to replicate and scale it up.
Where do we get the money to do this?
As mentioned earlier, we have repeatedly encountered obstacles in the process of seeking financing, so we currently do not rely on investors' investments as the only solution. However, if they are willing to invest, that would be even better. Therefore, we are currently in negotiations with public chain parties for Grants support, and we have reached a relatively in-depth stage. We expect to reach a cooperation agreement and receive the first batch of Grants soon. We will also develop a parallel Web3 mechanism behind the game, allowing users to become Web3 users without awareness and participate in the subsequent ecosystem construction.
In the future, we will change our entrepreneurial mindset from the Internet startup mindset of "burning money -> scaling -> raising funds" to the business mindset of "investing -> making money -> reinvesting", taking our future into our own hands.
Ask Me Anything
Feel free to ask me anything
Q:@koolob#17 What are the three most important things the current team is doing, and what difficulties have you encountered?
A: Obtaining Grants, developing the Little Ghost game, and updating OUTA. There are many difficulties, as mentioned in the article, but I believe there are more solutions than problems!
Q:@luckytree.eth #4802 Do you plan to continue with the project, and do you have confidence in it? What can the community do to help?
A: Of course we must continue, and I am more confident now after adjusting my mindset. I am researching which app or website can conveniently publish our needs to the community, and I will let everyone know what kind of help we need through this channel.
Q:@Drew#1283 What is the current team composition, and what are the plans for the team going forward? Is Li Dian still involved, and in what capacity?
A: The team is now very lean, with a focus on being as light as possible. Li Dian is busy with his own startup project. He has already contributed a lot to us, and we have no reason to keep him invested.
Q:@koolob#17 Does the current status of the OUTA game meet expectations? If not, is there a stage summary?
A: No, it does not meet expectations. The reasons include the poor experience in the account system and store system due to the temporary switch, as well as the mismatch between the game type and the TG ecosystem. We also overestimated the traffic distribution and user willingness to pay within TG.
Q:@GordonPlaying the Outa game, I feel that it is unnecessary to require holders to stake Little Ghosts in order to obtain related rights, as it adds an unnecessary barrier for holders to play the game. Additionally, the game level of holders should be related to the number of Little Ghosts they hold. The more they hold, the higher the level, and the easier it will be to score in the Outa game. In this way, the number of Little Ghosts held is directly linked to the airdrop value, so holders will be more inclined to hold and buy more Little Ghosts when they are optimistic about its airdrop value.
A: That's a great suggestion, but we need to consider more factors, as NFT transactions can happen at any time, and if we don't impose certain restrictions, it may cause problems with the game's internal data.
Q: @封心锁爱 When will the TGE be?
A: To be honest, we currently do not have the qualifications for a TGE.
Q: @程1296: 1. Why was CutUp shelved for a year? Is it because the clothing business is not profitable? 2. How long until diamond-handed holders can receive rewards? 3. Predict the floor price of Little Ghosts in 3 years - will it be 1E or 0.01E?
A: 1. The problems with CutUp were mentioned above. 2. I don't know, but I hope we can achieve it next year. 3. 1000E!
Q: @SHIN Do you have plans to expand overseas? Currently, most of the people who know that the Telegram OUTA is a good stepping stone are domestic and overseas Chinese.
A: Yes, Telegram is good, but we feel it could be even better. We hope that overseas distribution through Web2 channels can help increase the visibility of our IP.
Q: @Rex I still can't play the OUTA mini-game, and the issue hasn't been resolved. What can I do? Will it affect my future participation if I can't play? Will the NFTs have more utility?
A: We've contacted the platform, but the issue is still unresolved - it's quite mystical. But you should be able to participate in the future! As for utility, we will reflect it in our future products, and this is also an area we need to continue working on, such as learning from Little Penguin to bring more token airdrops to everyone.
Q: @地板换1-1找我#928, 4844 Do you need financing support?
A: Yes, we do need it, but the current objective situation is not very promising, as it's the end of the year and the market is still relatively good, which may affect investment in the primary market. So we won't be too optimistic about this. If someone can invest, that would be great, but we'll have to rely more on ourselves.
