Recap of the StraightFire AMA with Blockchain Space
On Thursday, June 30th, we had the pleasure to welcome to our Telegram chat:
Christiaan Eisberg, The Co-founder and CEO of StraightFire.
We asked him questions about the development of StraightFire.
INTRODUCTION
Q~ Thanks for joining us today, could you give a brief introduction of yourself and the team behind StraightFire to our community firstly ?
A~ First, thanks for having me and the StraightFire team!
We love what you are doing and we hope this AMA is the first of many we do with you and your community. So, let's get started.
I am Christiaan Eisberg, co-founder and CEO of StraightFire. I was born and raised in the Netherlands, have been working all over the world in big corporates, but for the past 20 years I have been an entrepreneur, ranging from Luxury goods and fashion to digital and social commerce, and now NFTs.
Although I am not a creative by trade, I am one by heart and throughout my career, I worked with the most talented creatives in their respective fields, where they almost all shared one thing: they were underpaid and undervalued for the work they did.
I guess over time, I have made it my mission to support creatives in getting the recognition they deserve and getting paid for their work. Hence, why, when I heard about NFTs and the opportunity to create passive income with it, caught more than my attention.
When sitting down with my fellow co-founders Xuyang Zhao (our CCO) and Bei Wang (CMO), this was the moment StraightFire was born.
Xuyang is a renowned Digital Interactive Experience Designer, who has worked on the forefront of digital and virtual design projects, such as World Expo Pavilions, virtual museums, and the European Aerospace Bureau Experience Centre. His works have won many International Awards. Xuyang is founder of Xtudio, a digital production studio focusing on 3D production and game design, working for the likes of Nike, Louis Vuitton, Tencent, and Crytek, as well as launched his first NFT collection.
After working as campaign officer at Greenpeace, Bei was Editor-in-Chief and Head of the Chinese Department at Dutch broadcaster RNW Media. Bei co-founded FIVE group with me and has develop the Digital China minor at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, lecturing on Chinese social media and innovative business models. Bei is also cofounder and Board Member of Pan-Asian Collective, is on the jury of the Mobius Advertising Awards and keynote speaker at Advertising Week Europe.
Q~ Tell us about StraightFire and the inspiration that got it started ?
A~ Yes! So, the inspiration is what I just mentioned
Most of us in the team are creatives, storytellers, and we want to make sure that in this (somewhat) decentralised space, the creatives reap the benefits they deserve.
So, StraightFIre!
Straight Fire is the world’s first NFT Social dApp for creating and sharing NFT stories on social media. We give your NFTs a stage to shine on, so you can promote them, make them stand out from the crowd and find new buyers. Simply choose a 3D stage, select your NFT, add some kick-ass music, include a link to your marketplace, and with one push of the button send it to all your socials.
In other words, we bring your NFTs alive.
And for some NFT projects, we bring your community back alive at the same time.
With the smartest talents in visual NFT storytelling, we inspire creativity and help people tell their NFT stories to the world. We enable NFT creators, owners, and brands around the world to create millions of NFT stories with the Straight Fire dApp and secure new buyers.
Here is our intro video:
Which gives an excellent idea about what the dApp looks like and functions.
By the way, if you go to
after the AMA, feel free to sign up for the private Beta test we are running at the moment. Your community is the first we are inviting to test, by the way.
Q~ You are building the world’s first NFT social dApp, tell us why this product is important and the problems it solves ?
A~ Great question! There are too many projects that are not solving real issues.
Basically, the NFT market is a very small market and the quality/ diversity of NFTs is somewhat below what it could and perhaps should be. To people outside the industry, an NFT is often just a JPEG that sits somewhat mysteriously hidden in a digital wallet, without any utility or provenance and it certainly doesn’t trigger the senses. This is what StraightFire will help change.
We help anyone who owns an NFT (and also NFT creators, projects, and IPs/brands) to promote their digital assets on all their socials, reach to a mass market, attract existing NFT buyers and potential new ones, and direct traffic to the NFT marketplace where they have their NFT for sale.
This will not only keep the NFT floor price healthy, but also generates additional income for the original NFT creators and projects, through secondary sales.
In other words, StraightFire helps NFT owners and NFT creators/projects attract new buyers and generate income.
So, how does the dApp work?
Connect & View
Open a Straight Fire account and connect all of your digital wallets. You can upload and view NFTs from 70+ blockchains and manage your complete NFT collection all in one place.
Select & Create
Select the NFT you’d like to share, choose your favourite 3D stage, and your NFT Story is done.
Click & Direct
Add clickable links to your NFT stories to direct your followers to your NFT marketplace.
Share & Earn
Share your NFT Story to all your social media channels with one push of a button and earn SFIRE (more about this later!)
At a later moment,
NFT Creators & Brands
NFT creators and brands can upload their own 3D stages, through our Creator dashboard, and help their NFT community to find new buyers and increase secondary sales.
On our website, these steps are provided again and there is a FAQ section too.
Q~ Can you share with us details on the $SFIRE token. What are the unique utilities of this token ?
A~ Before, I go into the details of the utility of SFIRE, let me first explain what a 3D stage is in our dApp. After all, it sits at the center of the dApp and basically:
- It is a stage for your NFT to shine on and stand out from the crowd
- It is a mini-Metaverse created to show your NFTs on all your socials
- It is the foundation of your NFT story, a video with kick-ass music that features your NFTs
- It is an opportunity for NFT creators, projects, and brands to offer their NFT holders a way to promote their NFTs to their followers, while using a visual narrative, or branded 3D stage, that fits the NFT collection.
So, now to the utility of SFIRE.
We have developed the first SHARE TO EARN model: you share your NFT stories on social media and we reward you with SFIRE. How?
- We use an algorithm to measure impact on socials; likes, retweets, comments all help in creating a bigger impact
- We multiply this impact with the rating of the 3D stage that you used; yes, you understand it well, 3D stages are rated differently; more about that later
- The result is the IN-dAPP SCORE, which determines how much SFIRE you earn.
How can I upgrade my 3D stages?
We have developed a new type of FREEMIUM MODEL, where you can use your earned SFIRE to upgrade your 3D stages and earn even more SFIRE. How?
- Everyone can access 1-star-rated 3D stages; simply create NFT stories with these 3D stages and earn SFIRE
- You can spend your earned SFIRE on upgrading your 3D stages; there are 2-star, 3-star, 4-star and plenty more
- These higher rated 3D stages look different, are more extensive and can be limited editions that are offered by StraightFire or leading NFT creators, projects and brands
- These 3D stages can create an even bigger impact on your socials
- And they carry a higher multiplier, thus can result in a higher in-dApp score
- Which means, YOU EARN MORE SFIRE
- And you can upgrade your 3D stages again, and again, and again.
Finally, you can stake SFIRE for APY and even stake selected NFTs to get additional APY.
How? Simply, select a staking pool and earn. And we throw in additional benefits, such as upgrading your 3D stages.
We like to be fully transparent, after all, we are developing something that doesn't exist yet, so we have to explain it in all details to our users.
An often heard criticism of existing social media is that only the big tech companies get richer from user generated content, we want to change that.
Q~ What significant milestones has the team attained, can you unveil some of your most exciting plans for 2022 ?
A~ We are in Beta test now, as I mentioned, and the Beta version will launch in July.
Investment wise, we have raised seed and strategic, with our final private investment round open since last week. If there are any investors in your community, we still have allocation available.
We have a planned listing in September this year. On MEXC (CEX) and in talks with various launchpads too.
Our Investors: GSR, Shima Capital. MEXC Global, WeBlock, LucidBlue Ventures, ZBS Capital, CoinMix Global, IBC Group.
Our Partnerships: Polygon, Chainlink, Unreal engine (Epic Games), Epik, Banijay, SupraOracles, Trust Wallet, Math Wallet, Wallet Connect, MetaMask, ONTO wallet, crypto.com wallet, Rainbow wallet, Atomic wallet, Coinstats.
And besides this, we have developed an amazing NFT project called THEXII.
Well, it’s more than an NFT project. We are building a new Fandom.
Inspired on the Asian zodiac, THEXII is an interactive Sci-Fi story that is written by the writer of the game Horizon, with a high profile team of creatives, such as the writer of the new Spiderman comic for Marvel and the animator for projects such Huxley and Star Atlas.
Working on THEXII has taught us a great deal about where the challenges are for NFT creators and projects.
Finally, we are working with a variety of brands and entertainment production companies on developing NFT concepts and bringing the associated 3D stages to our dApp.
Examples are the NFT projects HAPE and Mr. Bean, as well as the entertainment IPs, such as Survivor, Peaky Blinders, and Black Mirror.
So, we are keeping ourselves busy 😉
THEXII we are also launching in China on a local blockchain (in case there are Chinese nationals in your community); we are also developing a 6 episode (animation) series for the Chinese market.
Xiaolin : You mentioned something on investment, how do we go about this ?
Christiaan Eisberg : Since we are a project for the community, we want to make sure that people have a fair chance; for too long the market has been dominated by big players, so if you are interested in investment, drop me a DM or go to your Blockchain Space contacts and we can discuss the details.
On our website, the investor deck/ whitepaper is freely available for you all to see. Again transparency.
QUESTIONS FROM TWITTER
Q~ You are like the Instagram for NFTs, are you a non-profit organization, if not how do you plan to make revenue, because I noticed utilizing your platform is free, will this last for long or you plan to charge for ads in the future like its done on Instagram to make profits ?
A~ Well yes and no.
We are a tool first, then possible in the future a destination like Instagram.
We are a tool that helps everyone who owns an NFT to promote in an attractive way and direct traffic from their socials to the NFT marketplace where the NFT is for sale. This is not only good for the owner of the NFT, but also for the NFT creator/ project, because most NFT projects rely heavily on income from secondary sales.
Our revenue comes from developing the 3D stages for NFT creators/ projects and brands/IPs, as well as from developing NFT concepts and projects. As I mentioned, we have developed our own IP, called THEXII, which is turned into a comic, animation series, and various NFT collections. We do the same for some of the IPs I mentioned before. This brings in revenue through our NFT Lab.
So, the users do not pay for the dApp.
In fact, they can share and earn & find potential buyers for their NFTs.
Q~ Recently there has been so many data breaches and NFT hacks, how can we be assured of the safety of our NFTs when connecting our wallets to your platform, what security measures have you employed to protect the users assets ?
A~ We are only working with existing APIs of reputable digital wallets and with for example Wallet Connect, who has built a link to 100+ different wallets. The only reason we connect to a digital wallet is to display a copy of the 2D/3D image/ video of the NFT. It provides prove that you own it and only then you can use it in a 3D stage.
We never actually access the actual NFT; It stays hidden in your digital wallet. We will never access it for commercial purposes.
QUESTIONS FROM TELEGRAM
Q~ What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team leading in the market ?
A~ Thanks for this question
I guess the proof will be in the pudding, but why we are different is because in this Web3 space we are in the business of storytelling really with the dApp and we have been in storytelling for the past 20 years.
We are simply using a different technology and somewhat different world to tell the story in.
With storytelling everything is about the lore (the detailed story/ the provenance) & how it evokes human emotions.
This part is the same in Web1, Web2 and Web3.
We come across so many projects where the founders are great blockchain developers, technical people or marketers but they often lack the part that we are focusing on.
At the moment, we are at a big inflection point where if the world of NFTs moves into the next phase, it requires more serious NFT projects, fandoms, brands, IPs (that often already have communities/ fans) and bring them into the NFT market. Then we create size and traction and we can bring real value to the NFT hodlers.
Q~ Is this your project only for elite investors, how about others with small funds, is it open to everyone ?
A~ In principle we like to open for all investors, there are obvious minimal ticket sizes, but we can discuss this at a later stage.
Q~ StraightFire is the world's first NFT Social dApp for creating and sharing NFTs. But I was wondering, as the world's first NFT Social dApp what are your opinions on conventional Social Media Apps such as Instagram. Do you plan to collab with them or do you plan to surpass them ?
A~ Great question Victor; there are projects out there that try to replicate Insta or Twitter in a Web3 format.
I personally don't think this is the moment for something like this; I think we are currently still in Web2.5 and the existing social media channels still are the places where everyone is.
In it, we try to show that these Web2 socials are making a move, albeit a small one, into the Web3 space.
What they really are going to do is still anyone's guess, but they still have a role to play in the future.
In this overview of how we are positioned
Where they cannot compete I think is in their business model.
It’s based on taking very big commissions (META’s idea of an NFT minting service) or not sharing revenue with their users like most other platforms.
I think a collaboration could always be an option, for now we are taking traffic from Web2 socials to Web3 NFT platforms like Opensea.
CONCLUSION
There are some questions around how we create long term value for our token holders, which I think is a great question too. Happy to discuss those at a later stage.
Well, there are so many questions! sorry I can't answer them all.
Thanks for having me and thanks for supporting StraightFire.
It’s really nice having the StraightFire project in here!!!
You can check out their Website for more details. You can also follow them on Telegram and Twitter to keep up to date with all things relating to StraightFire.
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