My name is Gary Henderson, and I built the creator studio to show you what's possible. Like I live in a world of web three. I wear a giraffe. That's my profile photo. And I am fascinated by intellectual property. Character design and licensing. I don't know a ton about it. I was in a space on X the other day. And I saw David on stage speaking, and I really liked what he had to say. So I reached out really quickly. I shot my shot publicly. He quickly said yes to coming into the studio. We usually do these interviews inside of discord. But David had a technical issue. So we did it live on spaces. So I recorded it. I downloaded it. I'm going to release it here, but it's in a fascinating conversation about intellectual property, character development. And. Really what we can do. In the future like how we can develop this how we can monetize from ip and where we can take this so go ahead and follow the show so you don't miss any of our episodes and let's jump right into the studio with david All right, welcome into the Creator Studio. We usually do this in our Discord server, and we interview our guests behind closed doors in Discord. It's only available to Giraffe, and it's a really fun moment. I was in a space, I was in Coffee with Captain, and I heard David speaking, and, like, IP is just something that really fascinates me. I don't know a lot about it. I know there's a lot that goes into it. I know there's a lot of value there. And it's, it's one of my weakest points. Part of our show is to help show creators what's possible. Look, I know there's a lot of opportunity with IP. We've released full IP rights for our giraffe. We're in a digital collectible environment. And I hear David talking about the opportunity for IP today. is creating IP for what he kind of called a 40 year old female. Not the kid, and he said Pudgy's going to do okay, but not the kid, but the parent that buys the collectible. Right, talks about creating IP for the buyer of the IP. And it was just fascinating to me because I hadn't heard that approach. So I wanted to bring David in and I wanted to talk. I reached out, shot my shot publicly on the timeline. He said yes. Um, we were going to do it in Discord, and he had a connection issue in Discord. He said it just doesn't work, so we decided to do it here on Spaces. And invite the community to listen in it is recorded for the podcast. Um, David, welcome into the creator studio. How are you? Hey, thank you so much for having me and I hope i'm coming through Okay, really appreciate uh, you taking the uh, you know extra steps to do this on twitter spaces and my bad on the discord Oh, no worries at all. I think it's great to do this on spaces. I'm fascinated by this So you've been in ip development for a while. It started kind of back in college, didn't it? Uh, yeah, for 25 years, um, we have, uh, brought about our own characters through everything from children's publishing to, um, our own toy lines that we produced on our own. Um, I would say... Maybe 50% of what we produce based on our own characters is, uh, all in house. And then the other 50% is, uh, through licensing. Um, and yeah, we've been doing that for 25 years. Our most known, at least in the States is, um, one called ugly doll, which is, or was originally a line of, um, plush creatures, um, that, that never went mass market, um, well, except for the motion picture from 2019 and started in this specialty space. And remained, you know, there and, and, and kind of transformed from being a plush line to a lifestyle brand, more like a competitor for Hello Kitty. And then the one, my avatar is Bossy Bear, which was a children's. Publishing, uh, is a children's book series through Disney from 16 years ago. Uh, the books did okay, but the plastic toys were our best selling plastic toys of all time. And, and those just were globally, right? So, um, that then we, uh, produced through Ron Howard's company, Imagine, is now on both Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. in the States, and then just launched globally on... The Nick Nickelodeon owned like Viacom owned stations, uh, everywhere other than Japan, that'll start next year. Those are our two most known. And then we're always throwing other little properties into our system that we've been using for the last 25 years, which knock on wood still works to this day, so I'm hoping someone in this audience or someone in web three will someday disrupt the system that we're very. Have, uh, developed and have grown accustomed to and render everything that I'm going to say to you today completely irrelevant. That's, that's the goal. I love that. I love your passion for developing characters. Um, you've developed a lot. You know, why, why have you kept developing new characters compared to maybe doubling or tripling down on existing characters? Oh yeah, well, I just, I just love the nature of the business. And, um, I think that's what my substack focuses on, is kind of teaching, you know, Web3, but pretty much anybody, as it's never been put on paper. Um, what exactly the character business is. You know, uh, I hear often, and rightfully so, I hear many. Say, oh, well, you know, they might be the next Disney, or they're the next Hello Kitty, or Sanrio, and they sort of lump those into one, you know, category, whereas everything that Disney does, and everything that Sanrio does, or everything that Barbie does, those are three very different businesses that almost have nothing to do with each other, other than they share, you know, the fact that it's a little drawn character involved in some way. Uh, so, um, I've, Always been fascinated by the very different character businesses, such as lifestyle character brands, like a Hello Kitty or like what we do, um, toy, toy lines, right, which can become brands if they're successful, they sort of become print, uh, brand adjacent, um, uh, you know, that's very different from what Hello Kitty does. And then, Story driven brands. Story driven means anything from episodic animation to event based, which means like a motion picture, uh, like this one big thing. Uh, to, you know, the children's book space, which really fascinates me, uh, is an entirely different rabbit hole. And each of these presents a very real opportunity for... You know, well funded projects in web three or, or the guy, uh, at the very bottom rank of open city with no funding, um, which is what we, where we were. Right. Uh, they actually, yeah, I mean, Both have an equal shot at it. Um, you know, everything in web three from the top five on open sea to be very honest to the bottom five right now, as of today are pretty much unequal footing. So I try to make as much information available as I can as. It's just never been put on paper. You know, there's articles about Hello Kitty, endless articles over the last many decades about on New York Times, you know, the Wall Street Journal about how, oh, she's on everything. And it's all, you know, there's no mouth and that means something. And it's all been kind of nonsense, probably on purpose to protect the secret formula. So, uh, we have a sub stack out and then turning that into a book. Uh, just want to put something on paper for the first time as far as how to go about doing this. So... David, you talk about like the next Disney or Barbie or, you know, and I, I hear that a lot. You know, I hear if you believe in web three, you've got to believe in pudgy. I hear I love their art, their I. P. You know, I hear all of these, these alpha leaks on spaces talking about, you know, this is the next Disney. You know, what's you've been doing this for 25 years. What's the likelihood of Something like that coming out of what we have in Web3 today. The likelihood, uh, for outlier cases is anything goes. But the likelihood in general, um, is increases exponentially. The more, um, those who are saying those things, whether you're the founder or you're the investor, or you're just a person who, who, who really wants to do this, you know, this is also for the kid who has that little table at Comic Con, you know, um, the more. You inform yourself as to what that means when you say you want to be the next Disney or the next Hello Kitty, the better chance you give yourself. You know, I, you look at the little blue bear on my avatar, and I only set this up and say this for it to make sense. When our Bossy Bear show hit Nickelodeon and Nick Jr., it broke records on both networks back in March. Previously held by Ryan's Toys Reviews, which is like the number one kids YouTuber under Mr. Beast, I believe, in the world. And then he broke some other record. So we shattered that, and yet, here we are, getting close to, um, the next quarter. There's no toys. There's no t shirts, there's no merch. There's no plushies. And this Christmas, there won't be any. And in the beginning of next year, or mid year next year, there won't be any. And when you get into the spring of next year, There will be one book. That's it. And we have millions of kids watching our show around the world every single day. So, and by the way, I don't want there to be any toys or merch. I hate that word. That's, that's like the death word. Um, never make merch. Or, or plushies. Or these terms that we keep using that are, you know, detrimental somewhat. Right, it signals a disfamiliarity. Which is okay, how are you supposed to know what any of this stuff is? But, if I don't want there to be toys, and I have a hit show, we have to rearrange what we're, like, clamoring for to happen, right? Uh, and then, I don't know, you mentioned Pudgy Penguins, I won't mention any specific project, because I don't... I actually don't know what's going on, but on the other end of that, if you are just creating a toy brand from zero, uh, you know, like for me, everything I make mostly avoids the mass market. I avoid marketing. I avoid getting attention at all costs. Like if I pursue attention, I die. That's, that's a brand killer on the opposite on some other, and you know, the business that Mattel and Hasbro is in. Um, they go straight to mass with no awareness. Like if you're MGA and you just came up with LOL Surprise, all toys live or die on a combination of play patterns and design. That's the formula. That's the same formula Mattel and Hasbro have been using forever. You have zero awareness, you put something on the shelf, you go all in on marketing, and you will live or die depending on that play pattern, number one. Play pattern in combination with the design factor. That's it. Now if you have a hit like MGA LOL Surprise The the play pattern was unboxing, right? And then the doll play so that was a huge hit and so they turned it into a brand after the fact They started it functioned exactly like a licensed brand. Yeah, there's t shirts There's like, you know, uh, backpacks, uh, if you walk through Target, it's in every major category. And until, until the play pattern wears its welcome, that brand vanishes overnight. There was no actual brand. It was just based on the play pattern, which is okay. That's, that's a major chunk of business. I mean, MGA is really making billions on just that one line, right? And they're really smart. As soon as the playback pattern starts to wear out, they Morphed LOL Surprise into a doll line to compete with Barbie. And now it's got another three to seven years to live. Maybe. Right? That's like the average span of a toy brand. You know, and then, if you're really smart about it, you can turn a few of them, turn into, um, what we call evergreens. You know, like, things that can technically quote unquote last forever. Right. Yeah, you know, it's when you're talking about this and you're talking about the life cycle and you know, and I know it's such a fluke to get something that lasts for more than just one season or two seasons, you know, we've got digital collectibles web three where these are supposed to last. I mean, the, the intention is they're on the blockchain, they live forever and the prominence is there and, you know, they, they don't get damaged and we can prove who owned it over the years. Like, how does a, a web three brand that's trying to build a collectible digitally that lasts forever? How does that last when they go into retail and they last for a season or two seasons where they fell? Where does that leave the digital collectible? So, you know, this is going to depend on. The nature of the collection completely. There's, there's no way I can make a sweeping, uh, suggestion. Now, now some like Cool Cats and, uh, Doodles, right? They, those have the potential to literally go toe to toe with Hello Kitty if they, if they do it right, right? I mean, Doodles is right now in Parco Shibuya. Um, I mean, if you've ever stood at the Parco in Shibuya for a few hours on the weekends, like, like when the doors open, who walks in there, right? I mean, from that one little store, you can have an impact on many surrounding territories. If you, if you follow it up with... Similar, you know, hundreds of similar kind of we call cultural micro transactions, right? Um, there are certain things that if, if you're in a certain place, that's a major, uh, point of deep meaning for the, you know, uh, people who live in other countries who visit through tourism. Like, we, we made Korea our number two country after the U. S. by just opening a store in a certain neighborhood rather than another neighborhood. Um, because that neighborhood held meaning. And that's, like, when you're growing something like a Hello Kitty versus a toy line where it's all play patterns, if you're growing like a Doodles or a, you know, Cool Cats, I, I can't say which direction they're ultimately gonna go. Whether it's going to be a story driven brand like, you know, or, or a lifestyle brand like Hello Kitty, but if you're specifically going after a lifestyle brand, you're not ever trying to market outwards, you know, we always say you, you, you have to become one with culture and never market to it. Um, so it's completely different than if you have a toy line. Uh, and then, you know, when it comes to the web three. Like, as you, as you're, according to your question, you know, what's, what's right for one is going to be like, like nouns, like for example, right? Look at nouns. They have like 50 million in their treasury. Are they even a character brand? It's, it has cool art that you could technically apply to, you know, like we, we put noun stuff into like a little. Uh, boutique in Japan that that's part of our system. If I was going to continue, I would probably be able to turn that into something that actually resonates with people over the next 5 to 10 years globally. Right. But I can't because it's public domain. So I can work really hard getting into the right stores and getting people to actually deeply care about it. Uh, but then you can go and take it and put it in the gas station gift shop or the closeout mall or the dollar store. And then. That causes my tribe's tribe members that I've been growing to fall out of love with it, right? If you're in the character business, you're not in the awareness business. You're not in the attention economy. You're in the falling in love industry. There's no way around that. It's just simply the way it is. So, Web 3, not Web 3, you know, you could look at Web 3 as a category. It's kind of like a mirror to the designer toy. Movement from 20 years ago, right? And now we have Pop Mart. We had Funko, hopefully they'll come back. Right. But they had a huge run. Uh, so they're like, there, there's these cultural movements that come up and it's, you can try your best to somehow keep it within the dynamics of that, or you can allow your brand to grow and the web three component doesn't go away. I think it'll be really tricky to always have to satisfy the current holders. That's. Some we'll figure it out, but that's a, that's a, that's a tricky dynamic. That's like saying the guys who bought the first Ninja Turtle comics should be involved in like every step of the way up to Mutant Mayhem, you know, now we're like how many decades later. And Mutant Mayhem is saving that brand. It's had a rough run for like 15 years. Yeah, no, yeah, since like 2000. Yeah, like, well, yeah, like 14 years. It's been rough since like post Nickelodeon acquisition, so are you willing to go down? Are you willing to go through all that to get to finally having a shot at evergreen ubiquity? I don't know. I don't know if like it makes sense to bring those Original guys who bought those comic books in 1984 along through all that. I think you make a really good point there because You know, when we own a Web3 project, like I'm looking at the floor as you're talking and I, I agree with you. I think Doodles has the potential as a brand to become quite iconic. Um, I think they're one of the only properties right now on Web3 that could do that. I personally think Yuga could do that, but Yuga would need to become a gaming company and not be whatever they're trying to be. Um, I think if they became a gaming company, they could do that in the gaming space. Um, I think we need more ecosystems that are driven by an identity and less let's try to appeal to everyone. But, when we go to Doodles and we look at the floor, they've got a 1. 3 floor. That's, I mean, just over 2, 000. When we go to Pudgy and we look at their floor, they've got a 4 ETH floor. That's, you know, almost 8, 000. When we look at the volume, you know, Doodles has sold 212 ETH and just 212 is just the number you need to know if you don't know what ETH means. And... Pudgy sold 1100. That's five times the amount. So it's just, you know, it's, it's different, but it's, it's odd. It's almost like to me where we're at in the industry, you kind of need to pick, do you want to go mainstream like doodles or do you want to really double down on being a digital collectible right now? What do you think? You know, it's very tricky. It's a tricky subject matter when it comes to floor price, because I understand there's many people, if you just open, open C and look at the top few pieces in anything, uh, you see, you see some loss, right. And I don't know if that person is very well off or that was like, instead of a house payment. So I don't know what to say in that regard, but, uh, for me personally, based on what I've. You know, learned over the last couple decades, and just coming from the world I come from. I mean, does the floor price mean the least expensive? I mean, I know what it means, right? But, then what? Does Mickey Mouse have a 1. 45 floor price? That doesn't make sense to me. So, in the long term, I'm not really going to care about floor prices. And, this sounds cheesy, but I'm more looking at the ceiling. And, by ceiling, I'm not just trying to say the funny haha opposite of floor. But like, what is, what is the, what, how far can these go? And I think that right now, like you mentioned doodles or cool cats or, or any of these, they can go as far as they're going to be able to figure out, uh, really at this point. Um, why, why not just keep, anyway, the holders will be the holders and the dynamic, that dynamic is not going to change regardless of what these brands do. So wouldn't want, wouldn't you want your collection to thrive, right? Does it always have to involve you benefiting from every little thing? I mean, it's just gonna sit there if they do nothing. It's gonna be in the state that it's in. Why not, why not take on, um, you know, if it's Hello Kitty in the life, in the, uh, lifestyle side, uh, take on SpongeBob and Paw Patrol on the story driven side, or Mo Willems Pigeon in publishing, or who knows, right? Why not take those steps? And you don't, you don't have to be like, uh, like, We, we have millions of fans all over the world. No one knows our, like, if you went to my, you know, no, no one kind of really knows what we are. Like, there's a huge, like, does everyone in this room know what Moomin is? Right? M O O M I N. It's a massive character brand going back, like, you know, from the 40s. Uh, but, but no one really knows it, right? So there's no, I don't, there's no need to even become quote unquote world famous, right? Look at Miffy. The, the, I'll like, everyone should stop like trying to be the next Disney and really take a close look at Miffy. That little cartoon rabbit by Dick Bruna from 1955, who's kicking everybody's ass right now, like with a mop, like globally. Like that's what you want to be. That's what Murakami wants to be real bad, right? Uh, so I don't know. I, I think that. Instead of just, Oh, seeing Disney and, you know, I just, I just tweeted this chart with like how there's the top five, top 10, uh, licensing and everyone sort of focuses on those when they don't, when they're not aware of the actual dynamics of the business that these amazing collections could enter. There's so much room between this and even the bottom of that list, right? Where we are here in web three and that there's no reason to not give it your best shot. Yeah, I think it makes sense. So a couple other things that you touched on that I wanted to circle back to. You talked about the value of the IP. And if you take nouns and you put them in a really exclusive place, then it attracts a certain type of audience and a certain type of raving fans, where if they end up somewhere else at a gas station, it's going to attract a different type of fans and then they're not going to mix. So how does that play out cross category and? The IP space, like, if you have comic books that are crushing it, and then you drop a movie and it bombs, does that tank everything? If you have digital collectibles that are crushing it, and then you are in Walmart, like, does that devalue the digital collectibles? How does that play out? So, I had the third worst performing animated film of all time. Um, so the trick to having none of those things bring you down is to never need them. Um, go ahead and make a show. You know, everyone says, Oh, we're getting a show in development on Nickelodeon. That's fine. As long as you never need it. If you're, uh, growing a character brand, or you're growing a toy, uh, a brand, or you're growing a story driven brand, uh, none of those things will take you down if, if you just don't need them in the first place. And we'd really never really needed it. I mean... The amount of people who saw that movie are probably the same who bought our tin toys and windups and those made around the same amount of money. And it's fine. Like, so it didn't really take us down and no one, no one saw it. So, so it, you know, it didn't, it really didn't do anything. It's just one more project that we've had. And that's, I think the best way to approach it. And as you enter this, that space. You're gonna see quite clearly like oh, I'm like unless like you're like, that's it Like you just want to be a story driven brand that's focused on animation in which case You just dust yourself off and do it again. Look at Smurfs. I think they have their fourth attempt Coming out now like 15 years in right? the hellboy Uh, my old next door neighbor had two great movies and then a really bad stinker, right? And he's got a, uh, I don't know if he announced more of it. I don't remember what I should say, but you know, like it doesn't really matter. Uh, but you have to make, you have to build your brands so that it doesn't matter, right? So that you can't be taken down by one thing. Now all brands are extremely fragile and you mentioned being in the right store. It's not even really about the right store. It's about being in. Physical locations that are meaningful for your potential fans, but I call them tribe members, right? Because your early fans are You know, more like tribe members, and they're going to tell everybody else, but the idea is to be discovered and, you know, in physical places that already have meaning for people so that that meaning will be assigned to that, which is discovered there, which is really important, especially for the lifestyle character brand business. And it's important because, like, if I live in Japan and I, you know. Well, just when I'm there and I get out, I wake up, I get outside, I go on the way to the train, I must pass by like 20 different characters, the bank has one, the toilet thing has one, you know, um, and then I'm bombarded by Pokemon collaborations with some kind of other cosmetics company, and You know, no one, no one sees that stuff. No one, you don't even register that. I, you know, in real, IRL doom scroll. Right, it was my subconscious, our subconscious protects us from advertising and marketing. In general, in general, right? You don't really notice it. I mean, I walk through Shibuya, the giant screens and the buildings singing happy birthday. I don't even hear any of that stuff. Right? I might hear like the Dragon Quest song. Oh, I love Dragon Quest and you know, they're playing that damn theme song again every, every two years when they bring out a new game, whatever. But you don't notice it, but everyone has their stomping ground. Whether it's a comic book store in the middle of Georgia somewhere in a small town or the MoMA, like for me, it's the MoMA store and there's MoMA stores all over. Yeah, for others, it's like a fancy department store, like, uh, or like Parko in Shibuya, places that hold meaning for you, right? When I walk into Loft in Ginza, I pay attention because I know that, you know, that place is, there's no buyers there, there's curators, right? So I, I pay extra attention when I walk into the MoMA store. Uh, in, in, in New York City, you know, I'm like, Oh, this is my place. This place totally gets me. You know, we, we all have some thing and sometimes that's a person, you know, that's, what's so great about this space was downloaded via spaces down. com. Visit to download your spaces today. Sometimes most collaborations these days are also doom, scroll, fodder, but some collaborations, right. Are an opportunity to align yourself with a person or a place or a thing or a location that, that holds meaning. And you want that meaning to be assigned to you. So that's, that's why, like, when you, when you hear, like, going into cool shops, that's usually not what's happening. Yeah, there's lots of cool shops, but which cool shops hold actual meaning for groups of people? There are many. Um, and that's what it really is. So, and then when you go into the gas station stores, more like, well, I've, I have found you at Giant Robot on Saltel Boulevard, which means something deeply to me because I loved that magazine growing up as a kid. And then I saw you again at, um, you know, the, the, the, the Hyundai department store when I was on my trip to Korea and I went to Pangyo Techno Valley because I had a meeting over there with some tech company and I walk into Hyundai and you have this huge thing, I was like, Oh my God, I just saw you at Giant Robot and you begin to, it just means something to you and Hyundai department store means something to like all the kids from Hong Kong to Singapore, Who stopped through there and know what that place is. My, my, my uncle stops through there. He has no idea, but some kids who roll through there, they know exactly. They can't wait to get over there. It holds some sort of meaning for them. And the things that they discover there are, are, you know, assigned to that meaning, you know, if it all works out, then I find you at the closeout store over here in the discount mall. And I go, Oh. All right, well, I don't know, but then I find you again at the gas station, I go, Oh, and it starts to mean something different and I fall out of love with you and that's the problem. I, I think it's fascinating and it makes so much sense. How does this play out for individual characters within a collection? So whether it's giraffe or it's doodles or it's anything, how does it, like, if I value my giraffe and I take my giraffe to this, that my ideal audience is at, but someone else values their giraffe and they take it to the dollar store. How does this play out? Because there's a lot of people betting on the IP of your individual NFT image. I think, I think two years ago when I actually believed everyone that there was going to be some sort of decentralized new. Place some, you know, Zuckerberg changed his company name. He believed it too. Right. Like I, I thought I really did think entering this space and going down the rabbit hole in March of 21, that there was going to be some sort of disruption. Like the way the world I just described to you as a taxi cab, I thought the Uber is coming. And I guess it might someday, no one really built that. Right? So I imagined two years ago that that dynamic could, could work in that environment, right? And even nouns, like even CC0 could work in that environment, right? It was a grand concept. The idea of censorship resistance and Ethereum is censorship resistant. And then shouldn't the assets that sit on that, you know, also and new ways of doing finance through crypto and Bitcoin. And that was all, it's still fascinating to me, but the world we live in is still very much. The world we live in when it comes to, uh, executing brands, especially building something from zero. The tricky part is, you know, as I kind of just described, if I'm going to spend the years it takes to get a collaboration with, um, beams, right. Uh, in Japan, cause which is holds tremendous meaning for people around the world, like if I want to do really well in New York city, in LA, I got to do stuff. In other parts of the world, that it, it ripples back, right? Many think that to reach a certain level of meaning in Los Angeles and New York, you just go straight to New York and Los Angeles. But sometimes it's, you know, doing things at the Taipei Toy Festival in Taiwan. That hat will, will, will get you further in the States than if you just hung out at, you know, some other place. Um, so I'm not going to spend the 5 or 10 years it takes to grow into that if someone else can just, you know, the moment I finally do a collaboration with, um, you know, yeah, like what I say, Beams, right? Just for example. Well, then someone else is doing, um, you know, the, the dollar, dollar general, and it, it just won't work. So now there, there will absolutely be outlier cases because this comes from a very different place. Right. And someone's going to figure it out. I think that in general, the brand itself must be, um, what's valuable. I don't like, I know like for a lot of many collections. Each holder has the right to do whatever they want to, or to a certain extent in the marketplace and, and I, I have admittedly struggled with that. I'm sure someone will crack it, um, but in the world that I, I come from, like all brands are so fragile. The reason why, like you ever hear those kids at Comic Con, the artists who make like Star Wars postcards, and then they get upset because they got a letter from Lucasfilm. And they're like, Oh, a bad evil company wrote me. I'm just a kid in the corner. What do they care? Ah, they just care about money. They don't care about, they care about money, but really they just don't want their brand to die. And they die so easily. You can't imagine, Star Wars, all the way down to whatever, you know, Moomin is, I told you. Those are equally as fragile. Star Wars is so fragile, that if they, if, if they appear in the wrong place too many times, Um, it'll, it'll go bad. It goes real bad, quite easily. It's, like, the power of no is the most important thing. When you're when you're building any sort of character, uh brand, you know so that you can call the right. Yes It's just so critical. So to not be able to control that. I don't know I honestly don't know how how to work around it, uh out out in the world where I where I thrive Yeah, you know over here. I it makes like i'm just listening to you and here's what i'm hearing i'm like and i'm not developing Like, we did IP and we released IP, but we're a, like, we're a creator community. We're just all creators and we like giraffe and we have fun and all that stuff. But, you know, I'm not trying to develop toys and characters and anything like that today. I may eventually. But, what I hear is, like, a lot of NFT projects, they use their characters or NFTs to drop in and maybe create a, a bit of a following and, and some people around them. They raise some money. And now they're going to try to flip it and take a mainstream and they don't control the brand anymore, especially if they release their IP rights. And that's going to be really difficult because. Like you're right if if the pudgy penguins gets a mainstream movie and I can go for eight grand And put a pudgy penguin, you know in the dollar store and have my pudgy on dollar store collectibles everywhere And I can license it for a penny and undercut the pudgy penguins brand. Well That just undercutted the entire value. I don't think that the licensing companies, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think they want to license IP that they can't get access and control to. Would they want to do that? I mean, that's really hard to say. You know, what came to mind right now was perhaps the solution is similar to what Google did with the Chromebooks. Right? Um, I think that anyone can make an Android phone. Right? Anybody can make or produce a Chromebook. So what Google did is they created the Pixel phones and then the, the um, they, they created super beautiful, first it was the Pixel laptop and then it was the, they're calling it just whatever the Chromebooks are, right? But they, they kind of had their own line. And it was like, here's what's possible. And they did branding around it at Best Buy and um, you know, they had Google I. O. and they were passing them out. And they sort of created the culture. And then everyone knew, Oh, okay. This is how I can thrive. Cause I can make a, I can make an Android phone too. And I can make a Chromebook too, but look how Google's kind of showing us how to do it. So I shouldn't go to the gas station. Uh huh. I'm not just killing my fellow, you know, Chromebook makers, but I'm, you know, I'm probably not, you know, I'm going to fizzle out way, way sooner. And so, so maybe there's something there. Maybe there's a new way of approaching this that does disrupt the world that I come from, where it. It no longer is, you know, to some degree about that, but you know, just the way it has worked up until this moment. Um, yeah, brands are a fragile thing, especially in formative years. Right. Um, but equally when they are decades old. So I honestly don't, I don't have a solution, but the Google formula sort of comes to mind maybe as, as an inkling and an idea is to like, if I had a collection and I had to say a treasury of like 10 million. Or even 10, 000, right? And I had many holders and they had these rights. I would do my very best to sort of gather them around and say, Hey, I'm going to, um, loft. It's a chain of really high end tchotchke stores in Tokyo. There's 200 locations and I'm going to install this section and I want to bring you guys along with me. Now, you can go... To, um, Old Navy, you can, but if, if look what I'm doing and it's not just this because there's never one event that puts you on, quote unquote, ever, uh, you know, ever there's, but, but cumulative right after I'm going to be doing hundreds of these things like this and here's literally, I'm doing them. And I want to create, I'm not selling items. I want to create a program and I want to bring you in my end cap, right? I'm trying to create a home for everybody. Um, right then, then maybe, maybe, um, the issue is, you know. Does Funko own one of my PFPs and then they're just going to wait for me to do what I do and then they're going to wait for a certain percentage of the world to fall in love and then go nuts with the one that they're allowed to exploit? I, I have no idea. It's, it's, it's tricky. I, I don't have an answer. I'm not, I don't mean to put a negative spin on it or have it in that sort of tone. Just, I just don't know. Yeah, I'm, I'm right there with you, like in my world and what I'm hearing and like. Just me as a human, I like to listen to people talk and I like to just process and think and, you know, my mind wonders and, and I get creative and I'm thinking it's like, man, if I was, if I was Luca, if I was trying to launch an IP brand, I may have launched this brand and I may give everybody the IP, but I may create something else next and I may hold the IP. And I may let that be my next character. You've done that because I could imagine, I mean, you're on Nick Jr. with your show, and if I owned one of your characters, and I decided to, like, these, these, I don't know if you watch them, maybe you do, but these nighttime, um, adult cartoons that Netflix is rolling out, like, we've been watching Captain Fall or something like that, it's really funny, we watch an episode or so at night, but if I took your character and put it on that show, and, we'd, He's like with Russian oligarchs and drug smugglers and there's people dying and all this stuff. Like, that's going to ruin the image of parents aren't going to feel safe letting their kids watch your show anymore. It's going to ruin your brand. It's, it's possible. I mean, if you look at Simpsons, right, um, there's always been Simpsons, uh, porn. It's pretty gross. But it's always been there, right? But the thing that they really worried about was the Mattel toy line, right? They realized that that was a critical error. And, and they really worried about it for, for quite a while, right? Then, then many years later, after the show had really. Embedded itself into, into culture, um, they could do the playmates collectible action figure line. And that was just fine. It was great, right? For the, for the four or five years that it lasted. But that That Mattel line was way, that was more of a concern than, you know, the, the creepy stuff that's still there. If you search Simpsons, then, you know, whatever, careful. If there's kids, you know what I mean? Don't do it. But, you know, it's, it's there and there's nothing you can do about it, right? Uh, that, that was never the worry. Uh, I think it's because people know, like, they kind of expect, you know, like, I, type any character and then that stuff, and it's like, I don't know, that, I mean, does that tarnish the brand, right? But, but you're right. If. If, um, if I have a preschool show, like Bluey, and then someone else can put Bluey on, you know, Oh, he's just a guest star on South Park from now on. I don't know. I don't know. But, but all I know is that the reason why you want to have so much control over a brand is not to pick on the little guy, right? And to hammer down on the librarian who, you know, like so many public schools were doing ugly all day. Um, and we didn't care at first, but then they started to kind of change the way Uglydoll looked and that, I don't know if you guys know the sock monkey story, but sock monkey used to just be like a, it used to belong to somebody and then sock monkey just, everyone started making sock monkeys and then started making them look a little different and eventually sock monkey just became kind of a term. Right. Uh, so, you know, I, I think, I think I did receive a really mean letter from a librarian once, like from a major school in a major district who was showing all the other librarians how to make our stuff. And, um, yeah, it's, it's tricky. It's tricky. The reason why you stay in so much control is not necessarily to squeeze every penny out of it, but to, Make sure that you're still around 10 years later. Yeah, this is absolutely fascinating to me. So you mentioned the other day that you would develop characters for. The 40 year old mom. Why that segment? And why now? Oh, it's not that I develop for the 40 year old mom. That's the major consumer of character goods just already. That's just the way it is now character goods. Not like when you go to Walmart or target and you look in the toy aisle, right? Those are not character goods. Those are toys that make use of characters, whether it's making use of licensed characters or just. Something they made up on their own, right? Like, um, like the LOL Surprise doll that I mentioned. When you go to Target and you look in the girl's aisle. Sorry for calling it that. And then, you know, you look at LOL Surprise. That's not an existing character. They made a toy and then it became a huge hit. And now characters, you know, kids recognize that as kind of like a character, right? The character business, where like the billions of dollars are, is in like the Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Miffy, Pokemon is making the jump from being a gaming brand to being a competitor to, you know, Hello Kitty. Um, Moomin, Lisa Larson, like this, this, this stuff, right? Uh, Rilakkuma. The primary consumer is usually like post university age, um, until, you know, on the bell curve, maybe mid fifties for the kind of like the middle of the bell curve, and then the outliers are older than that and younger than that. So I'm, I'm not really setting out to make products for, for that age group, but I guess on the other hand, I am, since that's, that's kind of the customer. Right? Um, it has nothing to do with kids on and then for our, if you're, if you want to make a preschool show like Bluey, or if you want to make a slightly older show like SpongeBob, then, then that's an entirely different audience completely. It's a completely different business altogether. Yeah, it makes it makes total sense to me. So. Where do you think Web3 fits in the future of character development? Do you think that launching IP natively Web3 and then taking it back into mainstream is the path? Or do you think taking mainstream characters and bringing them to Web3 is the path? Yeah, that, well, for, for founders who are in Web3, whether it's you're, you know, at the top of the charts or quite literally at the bottom, it just depends on what your goal is, right? Web3 could be a great way to. Initially launch a character brand if you have no other way to do it, right? During COVID, uh, you know, you, you're sitting there in the middle of, uh, you know, perhaps a place where there are no quote unquote cool stores. And it's the only sort of option, right? Uh, or it's a great opportunity to suddenly reach out to a large group of totally new people and, and really connect with them. And it would make sense that it's kind of perfect sort of, um, Environment for creating new, new characters. Uh, just like how the designer toy craze of 20 years ago was an incredible and, and very new and exciting, um, movement from which, you know, many attempted to make new character brands. Uh, I mean, you can still find kid robot branded toys at, um, at, at Target now. Right. They're still around. That's like 20, 20 years ago, I think almost 20 years ago, a super seven came from the designer toy. And they're like one of the leading boutique toy companies in the world now, right? If you go to Target and you look at the G. I. Joe area, like the G. I. Joe's that look like they're from the eighties. That's all super seven. They came directly from. So I think the web three, it'll be the same in 20 years. I imagine I will definitely see doodles and I will see cool cats. And they will be thriving in the, you know, arena that they chose, the direction that they, they went towards. It, it doesn't seem like they're going to just suddenly stop. And, and, um, forward movement. You know, and figuring it out is, is the best way forward. I, I didn't know any of what I know now that on day one, and I made so many mistakes. So that's all okay, but I, I couldn't absolutely see them 20 years later. Uh, and then you don't have to be, uh, you know, on, uh, you don't have to be leading subject matter in every Twitter spaces. Um, look at Nyan Cat, right? You know. That I know that that's kind of a brand that existed before web three. That was like a meme, right? I guess it was, it was an animated gif that I saw popping up for years. Uh, and he thrived here and he went to the licensing show and I, I don't know what the results from that specific venture to the licensing show is. I've been going there for like two decades, takes, takes time, but I could absolutely picture. That being a competitor, the way like pushing, you know, that you find at Barnes and Noble, that used to be an animated gif on Facebook. And before that on, what's it called? Tumblr. Right. So it depends on the will of the founder or the group. And the willingness to put in the years and to learn about why it takes so long that you're not just waiting and it's not just the slow growth, quote unquote, that that slow build is is far busier than in many cases than just going big, you know, and there's nothing wrong with going big and fizzling out that puts food on the table. That's literally the Mattel and Hasbro model. This has been fascinating, David. What are you most excited that you're working on right now? Uh, well, the most excited right now is, um, Ugly Doll is now coming back in 2024 25. So we're bringing the plush that we released the very first ones from 20 years ago and putting them back into the specialty market in the beginning. And, um, we'll get back into some, some, some goods, like Ugly Doll, people think of plush, but I mean, we've sold more bags and wallets in the last, you know, four years than we have, have plush dolls and, and over time, lots of, uh, licensed goods, uh, and, and the publishing program with Random House and with Wiz Comics and all that stuff, so we'll, we'll start to see all, all that again, how, how far it's going to go and, and all that we'll see. We, uh, some of it in the States. Um, for sure. And then a lot of activations to do in Japan and South Korea. Japan and South Korea are like the gold white space, like the great, you know, opportunity when it comes to being able to then build in the rest of the world. So that's, that's definitely very exciting for that. I think that's really exciting. And, you know, this has been a fascinating conversation to me, just learning about the global impacts of IP development. And the past to take things and how something could, in theory, be very irrelevant in one part of the world and be wildly relevant in another part of the world. And everybody loves it. And then it's when it's cool, it's cool. And the talk about the fragility of brands and how fragile they are and how easy they can crash if they end up in the wrong space for too much time. Um, you know, some of the stuff about Mattel that you mentioned just. Like the, the stuff that, you know, the Simpsons worry about, you know, it's, it's different than it's not the porn, it's the stuff that may hit the shelves or something else to protect the brand. The big, the big companies have lots of worries. Like look at the Mario movie must've been a huge relief for Nintendo. Right. Um, I mean, they were very much looking for a way to decouple their brands, their character brands from the dynamics of hardware sales. What if the next. Nintendo hardware doesn't do as well. Look at the Wii U, right, from before Switch. It's, it's kind of a shame that just because your hardware doesn't connect with this cycle, that it brings down all your brands for the next eight years. That's, that's a no no, right? Especially now. So, to me, that movie was a successful attempt at transcending your birthplace. It's something that Snoopy did, and it's a huge lesson for everybody here. And maybe that's the answer to, you know, the Web 3 question. Like, look at Snoopy. Maybe Web 3 is the newspaper comic strip. You know, Snoopy went from being a newspaper strip for adults to being an animated special for, you know, a wider audience, you know, to being a snow cone machine and a MetLife mascot, to the Hallmark store sort of drudgery, you know, the dark days of the Hallmark store and Macy's, uh, and almost killed their brand with this movie in 2015 because it was clearly for children showing. 90% of their consumer base who are adult women that, Oh, it's, Oh, it's for kids. Right. I mean, that's look what happened to Paul Frank. Right. So Sony acquiring it in 2018 or, you know, 40% of it in 18 and what they've done after that. You know, oh my God, it's, it's, it's such a, it's a journey that, um, everyone here should look into if they're interested in entering this space, web three or not, and entering the character business, because it shows you how fragile brands of all sizes really are, instead of just cheering, like, dude, Snoopy, let's go, like, instead of that, to study, like, you know, like, don't look at the Hello Kitty collaboration with H& M that's going on right now, um, look at what she did from 1986 to 96. You know, or even from 78 to 98 to get to earn that where now Hello Kitty can operate this way, right? That that should be where everyone's look, you know I think attention should go as as you know, if we're talking about building in the bear then I think learning Learning on the floor. This is a good I agree, you know, focusing on getting those reps in, focusing on, um, building in the bear and trying stuff out. I think one of the things that I've learned from you today, David, is, you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Keep trying new things, keep getting creative. Um, explore different opportunities, look at the world as your canvas, not just one little area that you live in. Um, this has been really cool. How can our audience best connect with you, David? I know here on Twitter they can just click and follow you, but people listening to the podcast, how can they best connect? Oh, yeah, sure, absolutely. Um, in my bio is the link to, um, the substack. Sadly, the links, like, you know, Twitter has kind of blocked, there's like a, I mean, blocked, um, Sub stack links now. So, so I think, um, like just the sub stack link. I try to make, um, all of the articles. Well, I do make all of the articles free for the first several days. And then the important ones I just leave up there and then. I'll answer all of the chats. I don't think you have to pay anything to join in on the chats and in the comments and all that stuff. That's, that's sort of where I live now. You know, putting everything I know down on paper, uh, eventually will, uh, uh, be a book, uh, based on our, our theory. I mean, our theory is, um, the right small is huge, right? That's sort of like how we've lived for the last 25 years. Uh, don't be small for the sake of being small. Cause then you just end up hidden. But there is a right small that if you, if you learn those various pathways that the supposed giants, you know, from the existing character universe have come from, the more you learn about how they got there in the first place, rather than just, Hey, they're huge, but yes, but how right there, there's an answer. So I think the more we inform ourselves, the better that's, that's sort of our whole theory. So I'm over there. On Substack all the time. I appreciate you so much, David. I have absolutely loved our conversation. This has been amazing. Thanks for coming in. I've really enjoyed doing this on Spaces today. I absolutely loved doing this interview on spaces. I thought it was cool. We had. And maybe like 80 or 90 people at one point in time, we had over a hundred people there live. This is a really cool opportunity to have a conversation with someone. Um, a couple of things that I would probably do different next time as I probably bring up a couple of people, just ask some questions and engage. And I think that'd be fun. I may not include all that here in the interview. Right on the podcast, but at least for spaces live, I think that'd be really cool. But I might start doing more of these interviews on spaces. I might start doing more of these public. I started having some fun. Because today's conversation was great. We learned about IP. We learned about what we could do. With. I mean leveraging television, leveraging TV. We learned how to come back from. You know, something that's kind of a big ill. We learned a lot from David. I hope you took a lot away from, and I know I did. Um, I feel that I've got a new, a new friend. I'm a fan of David's right. I'm connected to his IP. I can't wait to see what he does. I can't wait to see where he takes this so thank you all so much make sure you're following the show and i'll see you all very soon bye everyone