Well, where can I start?
*DISCLAIMER* I’m not an expert in writing articles so please expect grammatical errors, punctuations, etc. LOL. Also, this is more of a funny comedic origin story.
I was laying in bed, on December 12th, 2021, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a story post by @franalation (a well-known, well versed individual in the NFT Space), about a project called “Crypto Noun Punks”. I went and did my own research on the project and I found the project’s twitter page. From there, I looked into the OpenSea Collection and was in awe in the volume traded and literally the project was just mirrored punks. The entire project was literally made as like “almost” a joke. This is what I read in their bio and is still in the bio TODAY (1/9/2022) {https://twitter.com/noun_punks}
“No roadmaps. No Traits. No DAO. No utility. No BS. Just Glasses & Mirrored Phunks. Buy for the Art”.
In my mind, I’m like “YO WTF, why don’t I make my own NFT project with actual VALUE & MEANING to It?!, if this project can have over 65 ETH in volume traded just for the art, WHY NOT ME?!”
So that very moment, I sent a DM to this account and you can read it for yourself:
After receiving the information, my intuition was literally telling me start the project. I buckled down and started watching the video. Well first, I grabbed my journal, and started jotting down ideas of what I could create. I was just scribbling a bunch of ideas on my journal to come up with something. Here are some pictures of a few pages of my ideas:
I have a bunch more notes, but I think these pages should do! Anyways, after finally going with the name “NINJA NOUN PUNKS”, I went proceeded on learning how to use Photoshop to create the layers for the NNPs. That took forever honestly. It was a whole bunch of editing, organizing, trial and error.
Once I was done with the creative process, I had to learn how to deploy an entire smart contract. Mind you, before all of this, the only “coding” I had was back in college for graphic design (I’m a college drop out, I dropped out after 2 semesters lmao). So I’m a whole NOOB!
It took me 1 week to learn and watch a 2 hour video made by (HASHLIP), You can view the video here if you want to learn how to deploy your own collection: https://youtu.be/fzH7Gjadmj0. I’m not one of those people that like keep the info to themselves, I can give you a million different ideas that will be successful, but it’ll ONLY WORK, if you PUT IN THE WORK. Which is exactly what I did, and have done.
I guess the only advantage that I have is that I’m well versed with marketing, video editing, creating graphics. I’ve been an creative my entire life. I’ve started drawing when I was 7 ish, and been editing videos since I was 13. So maybe that's why it took me a week to learn everything, BUT I’m still learning along the way as I dive deeper into the NFT Space.
Anyways, fast forward to the deployment of the contract, which took forever. Originally, I was going to deploy on the Ethereum Main Network, but the gas fees are outrageous and still are to this day! (I hope ETH 2.0 comes out soon). So I actually did deploy the contract on EMM, which cost me $1,000 (I guess you could say, I burned $1,000 in seconds LMAO), because I ended up just deploying on the polygon network because it cost 0 to mint!
So honestly, I really didn’t have a plan on how I’d get these Ninja Noun Punks to the public. Based on my past experience in previous marketing jobs and what I knew about marketing is giving things out for free. Word of mouth is the best type of advertising!
The goal was to mint all 4,444 on OpenSea and manually list them myself for 0.00 ETH, but OpenSea didn’t allow that, so I had to make minor adjustments and list everything for .0006 which is = to $2USD.
ON THIS NOTE, when I was minting the NNPs on remix (the deployment website I used: http://remix.ethereum.org/), me being a NOOB, I did not know you can mint on the polygonscan.com website! (SMH), so this individual with the address DEEC13, minted over 2500 NNPs (OMG). At the time, I said to myself, “Welp, at least I don't have to list all of these 4,444 all by myself, and I get what I asked for, I don’t control the floor price, the community does” (LMAO). So if you read this far, this is the story behind all the activities you’ll see on my NNP collection (https://opensea.io/collection/ninjanounpunks?tab=activity).
How did this individual know about the project in the first place? I was sending my OpenSea collection link on those Twitter NFT shill posts, and I literally woke up the next day with all the 4444 punks minted on OPENSEA.
look at this screenshot:
To keep it short, this person is making bank off the work I’ve been putting in *cry face emoji :’)*
Anyways, fast forward a week after the launch of the project, I really wasn’t getting much traction, So I started looking at NFT instagram promo pages. I decided to just try it out and see what happens. I paid like $200 for the first promo. The guy promised 60k DMs sent out to random instagram accounts. (The guy didn’t deliver till 5 days later, so i’m losing hope at this point).
BUT, by the grace of God, I just kept pushing the project. Everyday, I kept posting progress post, and I’m still doing it to this day. Little by little, people started seeing the NNPs. Then out the blue, people started flooding into the discord chat, sales were going crazy, and along the journey I was able to meet some amazing people in the space.
I honestly cannot explain on why this project is prospering the way it is, but the secret weapon behind all of this, was simple prayers everyday. I’m not trying to get all religious on anybody, but I do believe in a higher power. I literally prayed from day 1 of this project. I literally just ask God, to help me make this project successful. Help me make it to the TOP 5 NFTs projects of ALL TIME.
I literally align myself at the frequency of where I want this project to be and I put the work behind it. Like really, I cannot explain how all of this is working out, but I know the man upstairs is looking out! Think about it, please explain this to me, as of 01/09/2022, out of all the 2 MILLION NFT COLLECTION on OPENSEA, why is this one TOP 30 of ALL TIME on the Polygon network. This project is BARELY a MONTH OLD!
Anways, my end goal for this project is to make this known WORLDWIDE!
How you ask? By the power for the Shinobi Clan. Building day by day, brick by brick, 1% by 1% every single day.
Mark my words, this will be engrained into pop culture.
The God I serve is big, so I’m aiming big.
#BELIEVEIT.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
By yours truly,
SHINOBI.
