Chapter 2
Three Men and a Pool

We promise that not every chapter will be a reference to a great comedy, but we couldn't resist this one. Three Men and a Baby is a 1987 American comedy starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson as three fun bachelors who find a baby girl on their doorstep one day. The baby is the love child of one of the bachelors, and now all three men have to learn how to take care of this baby. Hilarity ensues.

Surprise Delivery

The story of how Justin and I met is very similar to Three Men and a Baby, but instead of a baby it was a non-fungible token (NFT)-just as cute and cuddly but no need for diapers or bottle-feeding.

JOHN:

During the summer of 2021, I was at the rooftop pool of the downtown Soho House talking to a music agent about NFTs. We were having an amazing conversation but probably the entire rooftop pool could hear us because I have a tendency to talk super-loud. After about 10 minutes of our conversation, I was interrupted by another loud voice. That loud voice was my co-author, Justin Shenkarow. He had recently started an NFT company and was eager to jump in and talk about NFTs.

JUSTIN:

I was sipping a cocktail while lounging at the pool when I overheard two guys discussing NFTs. My ears perked up. This was the first time I heard someone else talk about NFTs in the wild.

I overheard a guy say he worked for an NFT company backed by Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher. He explained that he had left New York and was looking for a career change. I was totally intrigued. I finally joined these two guys in the pool and mentioned that I was working on an NFT autograph company, while also collecting NFTs.

JOHN:

This surprise delivery was probably the best thing that ever happened to me and I'm forever thankful for Justin. It was then me, Justin, and another man in a pool together with our newborn baby NFT. Justin and I hit it off right away. We're not sure what happened to the other man, but we wish him well; hopefully he's reading this book.

JUSTIN:

John had a fantastic idea. He said let's do a podcast together about the Web3 space.

JOHN:

Initially, we started doing the podcast in our apartments.

JUSTIN:

I did mine in my voice-over sound booth, and John recorded in his living room. It was definitely a lot harder than I had imagined.

JOHN:

We had to find guests and make sure they were available. We had to write up the podcast questions, do the recordings, edit them, and post them on social media. We also had to promote them. It was a considerable effort, but we enjoyed meeting thought leaders in the NFT space.

JUSTIN:

This was the second time since joining the NFT space that I thought, don't overthink it and sit on the sidelines. Just commit. Jump into the deep end and do it. So we did it!

JOHN:

We started a podcast called NFT Heat. We had to get to 25 episodes, which would be smooth sailing.

JUSTIN:

Initially, I thought 25 episodes would be a piece of cake. Boy, was I wrong. By the 10th episode, with very few listeners and the considerable effort to host and produce the show, I was ready to give it up. However, John's phrase resonated in my ears: "We've got to get to 25 episodes, and then it'll be more smooth sailing." I thought, okay, I can make it to 25.

JOHN:

Around the 25th episode, our audience grew, and we got approached by a company that wanted to produce our podcast and turn it into a TV series.

JUSTIN:

John and I were over the moon. What started as a Web3 podcast experiment suddenly turned into a TV series.

JOHN:

NFT Heat became a TV show on Altrd.TV and is now in more than 65M homes on Apple, Amazon, and Roku and averages almost 150k viewers an episode.

JUSTIN:

Now we record out of a studio with a three-camera setup, a crew of six people, an editor, and a marketing and social media team. Instead of John and me repeatedly contacting guests to invite them onto the show, PR agencies pitched us their clients. Wow, what a reversal! We became a top series in the Web3 space.

JOHN:

The rest was Web3 history as Justin and I soon formed an amazing friendship that led to us forming the NFT podcast, which soon became the NFT Heat TV show, of which we've done almost 100 episodes. We also worked together on starting NFT Thought Leaders, which soon became Good Morning Web3, which will soon become Future Proof. Also, we're now writing a book together so I'm so glad in hindsight that he interrupted the conversation, even though I was slightly annoyed at the time.

Web3, Baby Bottles, and Diapers

Web3 was much like a newborn baby that was still learning to walk and feed itself. Most of these companies had been founded by former crypto bros, DJs, skateboarders, and other folks who usually don't come from traditional backgrounds. But for guys like Justin and me who were looking to reinvent our careers, this was the perfect space for us to flex our professional chops. The best way we thought to raise this newborn baby was to be the leading driver of building community. We would focus on bringing together all the digital diverse voices (from Twitter (prior to being rebranded X), Discord, Reddit, and other parts of the internet discussing Web3) in Web3 in real life to share, collaborate, make deals, and build companies.

John

I got started in the Web3 space by interviewing for a fantastic job with NFT Genius. I interviewed with NFT Genius CEO Jeremy Born, who said, "You're too qualified for the chief of staff position, but we're going to find you a spot."

I was beyond thrilled because I had always loved entertainment and music. The ability of NFTs to help artists and creators monetize their work excited me. This was the exact type of job I wanted when I graduated from the University of Southern California. I was finally on the path to living my dream life.

Justin

NFT Genius was a great company John had recently joined, and he was having a blast exploring new opportunities. My story is a bit different than John's, but we have a shared passion for entertainment, technology and Web3.

Growing up as an actor and then segueing into being a producer gave me my start in the Web3 space. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, in late 2020 I developed and produced a reality show about the art world. I had found this incredible cast of art curators, gallery owners, art advisors, and art collectors, and we shot a teaser for the series and built a fantastic pitch deck, but the series ultimately didn't sell. However, it gave me the greatest gift because it got me into the Web3 space.

On January 16, 2021, I was on the phone with my friend Mark. (I'll never forget the date because it was the first time I had ever heard of NFTs.) Mark told me to hop on a website called Nifty Gateway. He told me I should buy the NFT of an artist named Micah Johnson. I had no idea what an NFT was. It sounded like gibberish to me.

While on Nifty Gateway, I encountered an art advisor I knew, Vincent Harrison. He represented one of the NFT artists on Nifty Gateway.

"Hey, that's Vincent; he's one of my cast members in my art series," I said.

"Really?" said Mark. "Hey, do you want to join a group of us from Stanford who have pulled some money together and start buying NFTs?"

I paused momentarily; I had missed the crypto run-up, and sat on the sidelines while my friends made a ton of money. Even though I had no clue what an NFT was, I figured, yes, let's jump into the deep end and try to figure it out. I agreed and was suddenly plunged into a group that started communicating daily about what NFTs to buy and how to figure out this Wild West world of Web3. It was the beginning of building my first community in the Web3 space.

I wanted to learn everything I could about NFTs and Web3. This space is for everyone from any background, not just techies. I researched and found a hackathon about Web3 and was accepted into the Ethereum Global NFT Hackathon.

During the hackathon, I joined a team of three software developers. We had an idea to start an NFT autograph company. I had been going to comic cons for years and collecting autographs from celebrities and also from athletes at sporting events. I thought, what if there was a way to collect a digital autograph, so that instead of having to be at the perfect place to meet the celebrity in person, you could be anywhere in the world and collect the digital version of the autograph. Plus, since the autograph was an NFT, you could immediately make sure it was authentic and easily trade it for a higher value online if it went up. We worked the entire weekend conceptualizing the idea. We built a minimum valuable product (MVP), which is a barebones product that a startup builds to test it out with users. This MVP needs a ton of work but it's initially built quickly to test out the idea and used to try and raise money to build a much higher-quality product. We also created a kickass video presentation.

To pitch our...