Hey everyone, it’s been a while! Hope all of you have been able to enjoy the early stages of the bull market.

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, I’m taking a break from the newsletter to focus on a few other things. More on that below.

That said, I want to stay connected, so infrequently I’ll send out things I’m interested in or deep dives on specific concepts. Would appreciate it if you stay subscribed, but no hard feelings either way. Now for what I’m working on…

Announcing TIER ZERO

Along with 2 friends, I’ve put together a MVP for a digital-to-physical fashion startup. The first of (hopefully) many launches is currently live, and priced at $199 per jacket. It’d mean the world to me if you could check it out and provide feedback. Link below:

More on the vision:

Currently users can pay with a credit card to mint a NFT. That NFT can then be redeemed for a physical jacket, or the claim on the jacket can be traded on OpenSea. It’s a simple (but slightly clunky) way to prove our broader ambitions are feasible.

So what are those broader ambitions?

Over time, we want to be a launchpad for ambitious, emerging designers. Why would they be interested? After talking to over 50 designers, we found that the uncertainty and upfront cost of launching a brand is a major barrier to entry. It’s expensive to fund an entire run upfront, and nearly impossible to correctly forecast demand. This results in either an excessive amount of textile waste or so much demand that you have to figure out another run. At that point, the same problem reemerges…

With the former being the more concerning outcome, most of the young talent opts into working for larger labels. They intern and do their time before they feel confident to venture off on their own. Often, like so many people in other spaces, the golden handcuffs ultimately keep them from pursuing their own brand. We want to fix that.

So what’s in it for the buyer? If we’re able to properly onboard designers, we’ll create a curated platform for you to shop and discover new clothes. This effectively allows for you to spot emerging trends and be ahead of the curve. By tokenizing each item, the following benefits emerge:

• Provenance: You get verifiable proof that you were an early supporter.

• Community: You get a group of people interested in the same thing, that can help shape the platform over time.

• Authenticity: You get an inserted NFC chip that can verifiably point to the redeemed token, instantly proving that the item is legitimate.

• Liquidity: You get instantaneous transfer of ownership, while offloading the risk, effort and emissions related to packaging and shipping.

So what will change over time? Right now, we’re in the early innings of what this platform will blossom into. We only support credit card payments, our wallet infrastructure is limited, we don’t host a community platform, and we have a 2-week window for redemption.

Over time, we want to create an unlimited window, and acquire distribution centers where users can unwrap and rewrap NFTs for added secondary sales. This will also unlock new forms of revenue for the designer (via royalties). We want to apply account abstraction and/or build a custodial wallet, making it easier for non-crypto users to participate. We want to host various community channels, offering a direct pipeline to designers and end users. And ultimately, we want to change the way eCommerce works at scale.

So, with all of that said, if you have anyone that might be interested in building on our platform, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can connect with me through this email or through [email protected]

Thanks in advance for all the support. 

Completely unrelated, but If you’ve made it this far, I felt inclined to leave you with something of value. So I’ve put together a guide on DePIN, and the applications I find interesting. I’ll share more broadly in future, but here’s a sneak peak.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.