Welcome to the Bootstrapped Founder Collection, a web3 experiment that merges visual art with non-fiction writing.
I created visual NFTs of the most highlighted sections of my books to explore how writers can leverage the empowerment potential of blockchain-powered support of their fans and followers.
What is this about?
We’re living in interesting times: crypto technology is changing how creators understand ownership and compensation. With NFTs, value extraction moves from the community leaders to the community members. It’s the ultimate removal of gatekeepers: if you want to support your favorite creator directly, you can. If you like their work, their art, or just their personality, you can claim ownership of some facet of their work, while publicly championing and empowering the artist.
NFTs have made a huge difference for digital visual artists. I believe it’s time to expand this into other media as well. I have seen musicians start sharing their work in collections, and I want this to be a great way to support my favorite writers as well.
That’s why I created the Bootstrapped Founder Collection.
What’s in this collection?
It’s not a surprise that visual art was at the forefront of digital assets. Its visual nature made it easy to share and to consume. We’re visual beings, so we gravitate to images.
But we’re also storytelling beings.
It can be assumed that around the time the first cave-dwellers painted stick figures onto their walls, they were already exchanging elaborate stories around the fire.
We love a good narrative as we learn from it. Stories allow us to share experiences and knowledge. We are biologically programmed to resonate with anecdotes and tales.
I appreciate this, particularly as a writer.
So, how can this be leveraged in a realm dominated by visual media?
The Bootstrapped Founder Collection is a cross-over attempt — between not just two, but three kinds of media.
I found the ten most highlighted parts of my first book, Zero to Sold, and wrote them out, by hand, on a piece of paper. A partial manuscript. I then digitized those manuscript fragments, turned them into appealing visuals, and released them as NFTs on OpenSea.
How does this help writers?
As an experiment in the wild west of digital assets, this is a hope-based project.
I hope that this encourages other writers to take their hard-to-access textual content and turn it into a visual form that can be appreciated beyond the words.
I hope that this encourages other writers to seek opportunities for their fans and reader to support them beyond the purchase of their books.
I hope this encourages all creators to embrace the potential of NFTs, no matter how little they have cared about Profile Picture Collections or similar visual projects. The crypto space is like the world wide web in the 90s: a mix of boundless opportunity and incredible charlatanry. It takes people with an abundance mindset to push out the zero-sum players.
So let’s see where this goes.