Rahim Mahtab

President and CEO @arts_dao Collector, Web3 Angel Investor, trader. 32 years in Dubai 🫡 🇦🇪

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

I have held more than 300+ PFP projects

I have:
- made crazy profits
- lost money
- held projects to ATH -> zero

Here is my personal advice to builders in this space

If this makes any sense to you, share it,RT, as i believe all of us could benefit (collectors pov).

A bit long, but hopefully of value

The points we are going to cover :
1 Stealth Drop = Long term positive sentiment
2 Holders dont mind spending money, they just dont want to give it to you
3 Treat projects as Collectibles not Soho House (Tricky one)
4. 3rd Party Partnerships
5 Don't focus on community growth, but empowerment
6 Emotional connection should be the focus
7 Relevancy

1.Stealth Drop = Long term positive sentiment
Remember when you thought everyone forget your birthday, suddenly you had a big suprise of some sorts and how ecstatic it made you feel ? Because you weren’t expecting anything.

Moments like “Fk it mutant saturday” and “Check your wallet” (the first time) are key. Holders had no expectation, when you have no expectation and no ones speculated and bought the NFT at an ATH, everyone lets say who got the free nft is in profit automatically think about the sentiment here, or whatever the next chapter is (not just airdrops)

Compare that feeling to holders holding that NFT all the way through and seeing it dumped by 40-50% post final annoucment and what impact it leaves on them emotionally

I dont think people realize how much faith and trust plays in collectibles, and thats what you are building with and not by raising expectations.
You dont build trust by doing one big thing you do it by tiny micro things in relationships and everything else, the tiny thing here is not letting hype get them too loose money.

2. Holders dont mind spending money, they just dont want to give it to you
No holder complains about the flight ticket they bought for a 1000$ to come to your event, or when for example the below products were released.

The forever ape card deck, The superplastic Bored ape etc

are things that were exclusive for the project holders, but the reason people dont mind spending money on is they know its not going to you,

the issue isnt spending money, the issue is ‘if you have made millions why are you making more money off of me without giving me anything in return'

Spending money on things that relate to their NFT if anything builds a more deeper connection, because now all of these things u own especially physical make sense because you own the project that represents them.

(i have atlest 20 bayc items for no reason)

Something to think about

3. Treat projects as Collectibles not Soho House (Tricky one)
My personal take is that the classification of PFP nfts should be as collectibles and not elite memberships strictly from a project founder pov.

If you focus your ethos on this, you build a narrative of not “you are getting xyz becausee this NFT is giving u access to that” but rather “Since you collected this nft, we want to show gratitude with this xyz thing since your a passionate holder” It might seem there isnt much difference, but there is a difference in sentiment and power dynamic.

”You are getting a primere ticket to the new batman movie not because of the rare comic book you hold (because then everyones rushing to buy it for the movie and not the comic) but since you are such an avid fan, we want to reward you with this movie ticket”

This is easier said than done because markets will do what they will do, but i think alot of narrative and communication can be masssively leveraged for people to see this as collectibles and not shares or memberships

This will also help projects build a business model without a holder coming and being “how does this reward holders”, no one says that to Spider man director because they hold a first edition comic.

I know we arent there yet but When you classify them as memberships as a team (let holders do it if they want to) they are expected to have better perks as the membership business gets bigger but its not that simple is it, and thats when everyone struggles to provide perpetual value

4.3rd Party Partnerships
This kind of goes with the earlier point of holders dont mind spending money as long as it isnt going to you.

But even thought i know i am making it sound easy, and its alot harder, but third party partnerships or value that goes beyond the web3 space is one of the biggest untapped things in this space, not only there are ways this can become a win-win thing for all parties but it removes the pressure for always teams being expected to deliever to justify the value.

If someone holds a major hig valued nft, their net worth is way above average, there is huge potential in this data point to alot of 3rd party companies by having them as a customer in a special way.

5.Dont focus on community growth, but empowerment

The scalable way to grow is instead of teams focusing on growth, you empower the 5k holders to grow and bring in more people.

Getting your holders to somehow become brand ambassadors of your project IP is the key. Culture is the key to scalability when it comes to community, thats how music and tiktok trends work, you have a hand group of people who try them, or do someething with them, and boom everyone wants to be part of the culture.

@pudgypenguins are great example of this. But i think there is so much that can be done across the space

6.Emotional connection should be the focus
Very important

do you remember the post malone video from his collectible card that he bought for 2 Miliion and how happy everyone was.

Thats what collectibles and owning something should feel like, hype annoucments getting people to trade for 0.2 profits isnt cultivating that. On paper that puts volume, in reality it removes emotion.

In someways markets are to blame

Making it a 2 fold thing is the holy grail, when you can get holders to become obsessed with not the NFTs but that one particular nft they hold, they will hodl

And you all know someone like that here

7.Relevancy

Out of sight out of mind is a real thing, understand that this space is looking for the next shiny thing, refuse that idea, fight it, that even if you do that, our project IP or visuals are going to be all around your time line every single day.

Attention is the game.

Find an efficient way to build an ecosystem for this, so teams and founders dont burn out or burn money

10k NFTs arent that much in the grand scheme of things, get a few thousand people to hodl through the activity and you will be suprsied what you will build around it.

-------------

The above points are just my personal view, i know i am over simplifying things, its alot easier to say things behind a keyboard, and also dont deem that everything i say is right.

Trust me i hate people just assuming its easy to build, but i have built a project in this spaace, i have had these challenges and i am sharing all sides to the coin

Also i have held, collected, traded projects like crazy for 2.5 years, in my view the probability shifts alot atleast for me and maybe a bunch of holders when we focus on key observatioons, which in someways is definitely a net positive to focus on.

There is alot i can expand on the above, i still have a bunch of thoughts but in the interest of not making this super long i tried to reduce it, (clearly failed at that lol)

If you made it till hear thankyou, i hope you found some value in this.

Much love Rahim <3

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@Unbre4k4blebob Lmfao says other is bundled cancer

Actually shills bundle cancer

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@0xSnaG @allodev @laki_0x Lmaoooo

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@Nxn_nft123 @GrailsOTC @gondixyz Dude ur a chad

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@mys_dark @YieldFields_RH This post makes no sense 😅

Dnt those people mint for 0.1 eth ?

By any standards an 8x is a an insane roi

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@niran7 Dude !!!!

When you told me on the flight i was like wtf !!!!
i could have bet money on you being like a decade younger

also this is like 100x more impressive then cecilia coz us brown folks normally dont have the same rep with age as asians

[Cirrus @CirrusNFT]

If you have an NFT in a loan on Blur (that isn't underwater) that you want to keep but are worried you wont be able to pay it off before the platform shuts down on Nov 12 dm me and I'll see what I can do to help move you over to Gondi/pay it off

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

Yuga and figge are such a blessing for this space

Dude is making sure people don’t get liquidated on their apes because blur decided to shutdown when

Apefest kicks of day after tomorrow

Honestly these guys have done so much to help our space and keep it safe it’s so insane

[figge @mfigge]

gm

working with the team this morning to facilitate an orderly transition from blend to gondi

easy place to start: we're going to help refinance the healthier loans

more plans to follow

traveling for apefest today but will continue communicating updates throughout the day

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@Puf_xx Its almost like imagine, one bank is closing, and they are like we will talk all ur houses now woops sorry, but someone else is like dont worry, we will make sure we bring another bank so people can stay in their houses

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

no lol thats not what gondi does at all.

I feel sometimes you just feel yuga is making bad decisions so you come with pre notion thinking they are doing something thats not good.

But this is actually really nice of them, else alot of ape holders would end up loosing apes to lenders on blur, blur lending is the worst in the world.

They give you 24 hours, where as gondi has calender dates.

So if you miss seeing ur email or going on blur by 1 day ur fked

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

oh i understand

i am not confused, i was confused by your statement hah, because thats not how loans work, so i was like why are you saying the person is walking away with collateral and money that makes no sense.

Your completely misunderstanding how loans work my friend, they are not paying peoples loans, they are faciliating the lenders.

Blur loans are predatory as people can pull out liquidity and you have a 24 hour clock, on gondi you cant do that.

So if someone had 15 apes on loan, and suddenly all pulled liquidity, its too little time for them to pay up everything.

On blur someone else would step in, but the platform is shutting, so the stepping in is being faciliated

They arent paying peoples loans off, they are making sure the backing is there, else the initial backers will away with alot of apes

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@Angeliki_T1 @Rainmaker1973 right ? whoelsome

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

i am very confused, why would someone walk away with collateral and the LTV liquidity provided ?

Also again, liquidity on gondi can be provided by yuga if they wanted to buy it doesnt work that way. They had annouced agaes ago one of the people who will be backing loans for yuga assets is cirrus.

But other people can back on the platform too.

What is going to happen these are tons of people who provided loans on blur will just move to gondi (the only difference is blur loans arent time based they arent locked) so yuga and gondi together are facilitaitng the migration

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@tigerisfine gib gib gib !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

I think your mistaken

As someone whose provided ample amounts of liquidity of loans to apes and other nfts.

You will be suprised how often they are more profitable especially in markets when people are overleverged.
I have done it on blur, gondi, on infinex (was that the btc oridinal one, or am i mixing) and have done super well with it.

Its why people provide liquidity to begin with, so its kinda not the same as throwing another apefest.
Your mixing a financial instrument with a expenditure

I am not sure you understand how loans work, as majority of liquidity even on gondi comes from indepedent loan providers, so i am not sure where your getting this yuga loosing money.

They are a massive company with a board, with people who have been in business with longer than the nft space, its kinda crazy to assume they are burning money for funsies my dude

especially because loan liquidity comes from alot of people and is profitable again not just in our space but in the entire world

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@looty_fi

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@HUMEMARKETS Keep building !!!!!

I remember you guys sharing the locks

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@1Eyed0wl @HUMEMARKETS my dude thats the lock

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

Well from the dawn of time taking loans against your assets is always the smartest way to be liquid

Not just with nfts but like everything even vested stocks of a company

And if you dont see it as an investment and see it as "doesnt matter what price is" you hold as a collectible

also mulitple assets in the world.

Economic fundamentals never change, its logical.

[Rahim Mahtab @Rahim_mahtab]

@YieldFields_RH @onchainheroes Does the auction end once 888 bids are done ?