How a 25-year-old CEO went from being homeless to launching a toy line at Walmart

Fortune

Netz is the CEO of Pudgy Penguins, an NFT collection existing on the Ethereum blockchain. Netz purchased the company less than a year later, and today Pudgy Penguins’ market cap stands at nearly $100 million.

Transcript

00:00 Growing up in poverty was not easy.

00:02 We were bouncing around home to home,

00:04 guest bedroom to guest bedroom, and couch to couch.

00:06 I think ultimately, growing up poor

00:09 made me have an understanding of the value of a dollar.

00:12 I understand what it is to make a dollar.

00:15 I understand what it is to spend a dollar.

00:17 And I understand the difference between

00:19 having a thousand dollars and not having it.

00:21 When I was in middle school,

00:28 I started selling chicken sandwiches from Burger King

00:30 out of my backpack.

00:31 I would jump over the fence,

00:33 go to Burger King and get some chicken sandwiches

00:35 for $2 a piece, and I would sell them in school for $5.

00:38 My first job at Ring was actually

00:41 their first packer of boxes.

00:43 I was working at Ring,

00:44 listening and getting my education

00:46 through YouTube videos and mentors.

00:48 And it eventually led me down a rabbit hole

00:50 of being able to sell things online

00:53 via Shopify and e-commerce.

00:55 And this gave me a unique opportunity

00:57 to tap into a niche that was untapped at the time,

01:00 which was men's jewelry.

01:01 What I had found on Instagram was a post that mentioned

01:05 that hip hop was the fastest growing genre in music.

01:08 And this genre has something very unique

01:12 in terms of its style.

01:13 And so I thought to myself,

01:14 how can kids look like their favorite rappers?

01:16 And the best answer that I got was getting a gold chain,

01:20 like some of these rappers wear.

01:21 And so what I basically did is I found a supplier

01:24 for these gold chains,

01:26 and I started reaching out to the fan pages of rappers

01:29 who I knew I wanted to promote my products,

01:30 but I couldn't afford to.

01:32 And so what I basically did is I went to

01:34 kendricklamar.fanpage,

01:36 who had a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.

01:38 Instead of paying Kendrick Lamar a million dollars

01:41 for a promotion for my chains,

01:43 I would pay his fan pages 50 to a hundred dollars.

01:46 And every single time I paid them

01:48 and they posted my promotion,

01:50 we would make a thousand to 2000 to $5,000 back

01:53 every single time.

01:55 And I was able to scale the business up

01:57 pretty aggressively once we kind of cracked that code.

02:01 And within nine months of starting the company,

02:04 I had made my first million.

02:05 So I actually bought Pudgy Penguins

02:07 for two and a half million dollars.

02:09 We did not create it.

02:10 Pudgy Penguins was an NFT project

02:12 that took the world by storm in summer of 2021.

02:16 Pudgy Penguins is the world's next great character brand.

02:19 It is a brand that is going to impact

02:21 tens of millions of people through content and products

02:24 that make them feel involved.

02:26 And it's a new era of IP distribution

02:29 where brands have been known to be building

02:31 around the basis of brand and consumer.

02:34 And the new era of brand building,

02:35 I think is going to be around brand and participant.

02:38 The Pudgy Penguin exists to make people feel good.

02:41 It exists to be a friend

02:43 in a world where friends are diminishing.

02:45 And ultimately our whole thought process

02:47 behind building the brand and building the character

02:50 is how do we create this familiar,

02:52 non-intimidating, non-taboo character

02:55 that people can fall in love with

02:57 and ultimately love for the rest of their life.

02:59 (gentle music)

03:02 (upbeat music)

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended