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Grind & Growth: Grizz, $TRENCHER + Brand Building
Recorded: June 19, 2025 Duration: 1:03:39Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion on the Grind and Growth podcast, Grizzle shares insights into her successful journey in the crypto art world, highlighting the launch of her Trencher token and the importance of strategic partnerships. The conversation explores growth strategies, community engagement, and the evolving trends in digital art monetization, emphasizing the need for long-term thinking in a fast-paced market.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Yo, GM, GA, GN.
Doesn't look like the background music wants to play,
so I'm not just going to be here for a couple minutes of awkward silence.
Yeah, if y'all can't hear it, then yeah, that's just kind of weird.
But Grizz, what's good?
Can you hear me all right?
Hey, what's up?
What's up?
I heard the music when you unmuted.
Oh, shit.
What?
The music went away from me when I unmuted.
So, weird.
Okay.
Interesting.
Thank you, Elon.
But how are you?
I'm great.
I'm excited to chat with you.
Is it a GM for you right now, or are we in the afternoon time?
New.
It's exactly noon.
All right.
I'm central, too.
What's up?
I'm Midwest.
Where are you at?
Texas.
Texas. Okay. Yeah, I'm Iowa. Not as cool as you.
Yeah, probably a lot hotter here.
Yeah, I have family just a little bit northern Austin, so I go and visit there pretty regularly.
Oh, yeah, that's where I am, north of Austin.
Where at?
Just a little bit north of Austin. Like, I'm super close to the city.
All right. All right. Alright, alright.
I go and travel around Rock every now and then.
Nice.
Georgetown is where they're at.
Oh, nice.
Okay.
There's good hiking over there.
Yeah, absolutely.
We ready to kick this off?
Yeah, you want to start right now?
Or you want to wait?
We can shoot this shit for another minute or two.
It's like, man, I wish that music was here. It makes it easier for me but oh man it's cool look at all these trencher pfps in
here hell yeah how many people how many people nice clearly you're doing something right especially
like if people are wearing custom like graphical infograph based ones as pfps too
you know you're definitely doing something right yeah i'm trying to grind them out yeah i'm very
curious about that how many what's like your backlog looking like oh how many do i have booked
yeah like a month worth oh shit yeah i'm like completely booked up I'm gonna be so busy for
the next month especially the next two weeks but even beyond that are you full-time grizzing it
right now yeah so I've been well we could talk more about it but I've been freelance
in uh freelance crypto artists for a few years.
So I'm still wrapping up another freelance job that I had been working on before all the trencher stuff happened.
So that's why I'm like, I'm working like 14 hours a day right now.
It's been really intense.
Do you married kiddos or any of that or just solo?
You're all in?
No, just me and my dogs.
All right.
Okay. Well, that plays out perfectly from a life responsibility standpoint.
I'm a dad with three kids and man, I don't know how I show up.
I'm a psycho.
Yeah.
I think everyone in crypto is a little unwell.
Like we're sick.
Yeah.
We're like sick.
Yeah.
I'm to the point where I'm just numb to it all.
You know, I've been in the game since I bought the top in 2017.
It just got wrecked.
So I just got introduced to a volatility from the jump.
So nothing really affects me these days.
I'm just numb.
And maybe that's a positive and a negative double-edged sword.
Yes, I would agree with that.
There's definitely, I would say lean more positive
though. All right. Well, I think we've got people here. They'll start coming in here too. If you're
vibing this, you're a huge Grizz, Grizzle fan, please retweet, share the room. I'm going to
extract a lot of value today. I'm very, very excited for this conversation, but what's going
on? You're listening to the Grind and Growth podcast, proudly powered by Bonk Art Masters and Exchange Art. I'm your host,
Coach Scotty Russell, and my goal is to help you build your business and your mind to feel
your growth along the grind. Today, I am joined by Grizzle. How about you tell us just a quick
little elevator pitch about yourself before I introduce the topic today?
introduce the topic today okay i'm grizzle um i've been in crypto art for three years since
like summer of 2021 and started doing it more seriously in summer of 2022 um and i've yeah
i've just been grinding for years and now this and now my trencher art series just kind of popped off. So I've just been, my, my brain has been adapting to it.
I think that just goes to show like, Hey,
you never know when that next move you're make or the moves you've been
making compound over time and an opportunity will show up.
It's just a matter of how prepared are you for it?
Yeah. Yeah. We could, I mean, we could talk more about that too. I don't,
I don't want to like jump ahead. Nope. I got a whole little system ready to go. And I think
this is going to flow really, really well. So a few weeks ago, for those who don't know,
my homegirl bangers joined us for one of these episodes. And we talked about the pros and cons
of artists and content creators launching tokens and shit coins to monetize their brand and their ip we specifically brought up grizz and as a specific soul who's been
able to pull it off extremely well like i've been watching so today i want to dive deep into grizzle's
art journey the trencher story and just everything about how we're able to, as artists, still leverage the things that you talk about today, the opportunities and benefits you talked about today, and how artists can also thrive from what you're doing, maybe without launching a token as well.
And then just spotlight the awesome shit you're doing and how you're turning this adversity into opportunity.
So let's dive a little bit more on your journey as an artist.
What got you into the digital art scene
and then how did you first discover web through you kind of briefly touched on it but let's like
officially start digging in um so actually my ex introduced me to nfts and i was like very reluctant
to get into it because i was like oh this is stupid this is for boys um and then i when i first got into nfts and like the the end of 2021 i was
into all the like girly ones like women and the women in web 3 type thing and then when goblin
town came out i was like og day one goblin and that's when i started to get more into like degen were you in the spaces just making all
the goblin sounds no i did not i was in this i was in those spaces but i did not make the sounds
um but yeah i was in those like og goblin spaces um and then i started doing like like custom art
custom goblins and commissions for people and that that's kind of that was when like, I really started to take it more seriously.
tribute pieces or derivatives and stuff of popular projects back in the day of like high blinks with
degenerate apes and stuff. And that like really helped them gain traction quickly. Was that
something you found as well or maybe attracted work from? Oh yeah, absolutely. That's been like
the majority of my, of my work in crypto art. I've been just doing art for whatever projects I like,
crypto art. I've been just doing art for whatever projects I like a lot of the times for free,
just making art. And then, and that's kind of like how, how everything kind of built up to
to the Trencher Art Series. Because most of my time in, you know, doing freelance art,
I've been working on other people's projects, you know,
like helping other people get exposure to their projects. And I've, I've worked on a lot of
projects and I've helped, um, some projects grow their accounts to like 5,000, 10,000, 15,000
followers. But mine was always sitting under 3,000. You know, I would just, was not
getting any traction on my account, but I wasn't, I wasn't like investing in myself. I was investing
in other people's projects. Um, so last summer I started to think about like, okay, how can I,
how can I have my own art style that people look at that and they're like, oh, that's Grizzle's art and not
because I draw on a lot of different illustration styles and I, you know, I do, I'm just like very
versatile in how I work. And I think a lot of people wouldn't really recognize my work that
I've done on other projects because I work in so many styles. So I wanted to like nail down a style
that's me,
and start to build up my own personal account. Kind of like, do you know Bold Leonidas, the daily?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The commentary comic guy.
Yeah, I love Bold. Like, I think that he probably inspires me more than, than anyone else here. And I always wanted my account to be like that, where I'm just doing my own thing, my own
art from my personal account.
And it's a very recognizable style that people, you know, that they relate to.
So I started working on like character designs last summer, but I was working on so many
projects I wasn't able to prioritize it until like winter break.
I wasn't able to prioritize it until like winter break. And I, and then I released this character
in January that's similar to the character that's in my PFP right now, but it was a bit different
and it really wasn't resonating with people. Like I could tell it wasn't getting, um, it wasn't
getting a lot of engagement. So I was like, all right, I need to kind of go back to the drawing board and change the style
a little bit of this character um and I was doing the same the same thing I'm doing now just like
daily comics um and then in the beginning of April was when I started putting out comics with this
character the one that's in my PFP um and then I could tell people were starting to resonate with this character and that is when i
made the pump fun trencher which is the same character style but it was just uh like the
the starter pack type thing that has become the recognizable trencher thing
no i love it we're dropping little nuggets right now of it it's hard to digest someone's work when
they're all over the place because not only does the artist not know what to expect but that says
expectations of a potential audience not knowing what to expect so expect so when you have that
defined recognizable style and ip that you're building i feel like it begins to gain traction more quickly as well
and helps you develop that ip and then creating tribute or derivative fan art in that style as
well can bring eyes and exposure to the work you're already doing and then you're setting
yourself up for a huge opportunity like this which you just gave us a perfect segue into
the trencher story.
How did you find out that someone stole your trencher art and launched a token?
Like, give us the whole scoop on that.
Okay, so there's actually like a little backstory of it, which like we don't really need to get into. But I, so this, I kind of started, I came up with the idea of the Pump Fun Trencher.
so this I kind of started I came up with the idea of the pump fun trencher um when I so I made my
like grizzle starter pack and people really liked it and then I was like oh I'm gonna do like a
trencher like a pump fun trencher starter pack um but then base rolled out or like base and Zora
rolled out the like coin coin it thing and I thought it would be really
funny to do two to do like the bass slash Zora coiner and then to do the pump fun Solana trencher
and kind of see which one people resonated with more so I made so I actually released the bass
one first just because the I wanted to take advantage of the new, like the mindshare. Everyone was talking about it.
But I actually finished the pump phone one first,
but I didn't post it until like a week later.
I can't remember exactly.
I think it was a week after all the base stuff happened.
So yeah, the base one was just like, meh,
like people were not really connecting with it.
It got like a decent amount of engagement, but not super connecting. And then I posted the pump fun one on April 23rd
in the morning and it got like decent engagement. But then what happened was that when I went to
sleep, Alon commented just fire emoji on it. And it just like went super viral um and someone tokenized it while
I was sleeping on pump fund so then I woke up the next morning to I mean I'm not even exaggerating
probably like 10,000 messages it was so I think I had like 5 million impressions on my account
within like a three-day period it was was really intense. Like just going from a tiny
account like I was to waking up to that was really intense for me. And yeah, there were like,
there were four tokens at first that were trending. There were like two trencher ones
and two grizzle ones. And I knew right immediately I didn't want to like,
uh, embrace or like endorse or support the Grizzle ones. Cause I do not want a token in my name.
Like I don't want a token that is in my name. Um, and I, and anyways, the Trencher is just like a
cool, cooler narrative. That one was already, when I woke up, it was like number two trending on deck
screener. And it was there are over 5000 holders and it was over a million dollar market cap.
So it's just like, what do I do? What do I do? And I was, I see wireless in here, like interacting,
and she's like nocturnal and she was sleeping. She wakes up at like 1pm. So I was like, texting,
She was sleeping.
She wakes up at like 1 p.m.
So I was like texting, texting, texting her like, what do I do?
What do I do?
And I am lucky enough that I have been in this space for a long time that I've made like good connections.
So I had a lot of people that were supporting me through that day.
I think I didn't I don't think I put out my statement on like, you know, I'm cool with the Trencher token.
I support it.
And I think I put that out around like 4 p.m.
And that's because I was the whole day just trying to figure out what to do, how to handle it.
Having so many conversations with Wireless, with Elan, with the PumpFun team, with some other people of like, what are my options?
And yeah, it was just a very intense
day I know from my own experience when someone ripped my uh bonk art and made a token that was
so overwhelming and the dms just everything so much so did like the person who deployed your
stuff did they hit you up or like no like how did you get credit for it or was it just such strong ip with your post that people
just immediately knew it was yours i didn't know if you got proper credit or anything like that
because i didn't get credit someone just randomly was like it was like middle of a saturday and i'm
with my kiddos like hey someone's uh someone's using your artwork over here and it'd been live for a little bit and doing well and I had no idea no it was different for me I think everyone everyone did associate it
with me but I think it's because Alon commented on my post okay okay so yeah that makes sense
yeah so my post went viral it has like half a million like views on it as of right now i can't remember i've been
scrolling like for five minutes on your page to get back to april and my god your shit is active
yeah i'm posting a live i've made like taking shit out i've made like over a hundred pieces
of art in the past like month and a half um yeah so it's it's april 23rd if you you have to go back to that day to get it i'm still like
on march 4th my god um yeah so yeah people did they were associating it with me um and they were
like you need to endorse one of these tokens and there was you know there were four and all four
of them were trying to get me to support theirs yeah they're trying
to get your wallet and send you supplies so you can oh yeah oh yeah that's crazy oh man so you're
just getting a bunch of stuff sent to your wallet like where is all this money coming from yeah but
the trencher the one that the one that um went viral that is you know the one that is the main ca yeah the one that's doing well right now
that one the they didn't send me supply of that one it were it was the other ones trying to vamp
the one that's viral that sent me supply yo yeah what a wild world did you get any of the supply
then i know that's probably a touchy question so like even to this day for all the work you've done.
So there were a lot of people who wanted to send me supply of the,
of this trencher token.
But my thing with accepting supply from people is that it doesn't really benefit me in any way because everyone will just watch the wallet.
Yep.
And you're going to get grizzled if you start selling because and it would it would it wouldn't be good for me and it would hurt the token too so like
there was there's not a lot of benefit for me in accepting supply from other people so
i had to market buy it yeah yep i get it totally get it and you made that rare move to support the project instead
of fighting it so what led you to that decision of just leaning all in even though like a lot of
artists could be salty karens and be like what fuck you you're stealing my ip and profiting off
me absolutely no way i'm shutting this shit down but you went the different route to support it
you know what was that what was that reasoning Or did you have wireless or someone else like preach, not even necessarily
preach, but speak about the benefits of like, Hey, you could do X, Y, and Z or what, what was
the gut initial reaction? What made you jump on board? Okay. So it was, it was kind of all of the
above. So my, my gut reaction before wireless woke up and was able to like talk
or everything with me was to support the one that was viral because it's really it's extremely rare
as i'm sure you know for artists work to go viral it like yeah it almost never happens especially
to that level unless you're bangers who can just do it easily. That's pretty much it.
Yeah, it's hard to go viral as an artist and like as a small illustrator.
So I knew that I wanted to take advantage
of the opportunity for people to see my art.
Like my priority has always just been like visibility.
I want, you know, as much of visibility as possible.
So I, you know, obviously it was a bummer to
like miss the entry on my own thing because it was already above a million dollar market cap when I,
when I woke up. Um, but yeah, that was, so that was my like initial gut reaction. And then, um,
So that was my like initial gut reaction.
And then I'm lucky to be very close friends with Wireless, who is genuinely, no exaggeration, the smartest person in all of crypto.
Like I am not saying that just because she's my friend.
She is genuinely like the smartest person I have ever met in my life.
And I'm really lucky to like get to talk through my ideas and my thoughts with her. And
like, I would not be here today, if wireless hadn't helped me get through that day, truly.
Like she's like just the greatest, most supportive friend ever. And yeah, there were a bunch of other
people helping, you know, just talk, talk through things as well. And everyone kind of agree,
everyone was like all in agreement, like this is the best route, like launching my own token or
supporting one of the ones that gave, like there were a couple that gave me like 50% supply,
70% supply, 80% supply, but supporting any of those would have just vamped the one that's running.
And then what would have happened is if I launched my own or supported one of the ones that gave me supply, it would have just made all of the people angry who were like the 5,000 holders of the running token.
It just would have made them all angry.
And then I would have made everyone angry and just killed all of the momentum.
everyone angry and just killed all of the momentum. So yeah, for me, it was all about
taking advantage of momentum, taking advantage of visibility and just, and that's still my
priority every single day is momentum and visibility. I could have really used a wireless
in my life when that should happen to me a month ago. I was overwhelmed, had no idea what I was
doing, but yeah, it was when a similar path you, and man, everybody's grilling me. You should be more like Grizzle. I'm like, you know, I got kids and a business
and everything. I can't kick out art like this nonstop. Are you kidding me? So yeah,
I can't tell you. I've had hundreds of people saying you need to do more like Grizzle's
doing with Trencher. This could be the next Trencher. I'm like, I just want to be Scotty
right now. So kudos to you because everybody was telling me to be more like you.
Oh, I'm sorry.
No, you're good. You're good. The double edged sword of exposure. So with this massive exposure comes pressure, which I know you know even more than I knew.
But in this meme coin meme coin culture, the mood swings with the the charts how did you handle the love and the
hate from both the fans and the critics is when the charts doing well oh grizzle you're the shit
and then when it's tanking and people are panic selling whatever like i'm sure you got a lot of
things like you're not doing enough well i think that i've i've managed to avoid that because of
how i handled the first day um and the statements that I've put out.
Because I've always said that, like, I think my very first day one statement on the 24th said, like, I want people to care more about my art than the price in the chart.
Like, I am not doing this for a price in the chart.
I'm doing this for the art.
I've been always doing it for the art, and chart. I'm doing this for the art. I've been always doing it for the art and I will continue to do it for the art.
So I've tried to, you know, see it as like there's Trencher Token and Trencher Art Series.
And I'm focused on like the art series, which of course supports the token by continuing to make art with this character.
But like I'm not – everything that I do is like long
term thinking like I don't do anything for like a short term pump of the token I think that is
like it would just be a waste of my time to make decisions around trying to short term pump a token
I just I'm making all my decisions long term but of course there are still like hate comments and
people being crazy.
And I just mute them or block them.
And that's how I do with it.
And then I complain to wireless sometimes when I'm like, everyone tokenize my dog.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
No, I love that.
I like to say the slow cooks are the best cooks.
And being an artist within the meme coin trenches, like there's people who appreciate the art and
the artist but a lot of the trenches aren't slow cookers you know rotation meta so i know
there's still all that pressure and i like how you've been able to protect your name
as well as your intentions do you have a hard time separating i'm grizzle here's me and my art versus I'm grizzle
the artist of trencher like how do you balance those identities each day are you just all in
this season is trencher knowing that it's gonna lead to other opportunities which we can also talk
about yeah I I mean I I I'm just thinking long term so I'm I'm not I'm trying to not even like let all of
the the noise like affect me of course some days it does like some days it really does get to me
um but for the most part I have like a very long-term vision of what I want my account to
look like and I'm just like, I'm just working towards that.
Can you share that?
Because I think so many artists in here,
a lot of artists I even work with,
sometimes it's tough to even get a short-term
six month to 12 month.
Just where do you want to be by the end of this year?
Where do you want to be by this year?
What do you want by the end of this quarter?
Let's make like actionable milestones.
So every day our micro intentional actions
guide you toward the macro. So I would love to know how big is this vision? Three to five years?
What's that looking like? What are the specifics? I think that can help other people. I want to
challenge them when they hear you talk about it to start roadmapping what they're wanting while
also keeping it flexible as we're all just a little Pokemon evolving all the time that's a good question I think it's different for crypto
artists so I think it depends what type of art you're you're doing but in crypto I think that
trying to keep your goals general more like general goals for yourself and not specific
because the space changes and moves so
fast. So like you have to like artists or any type of creator, not just artists, anyone in crypto,
you have to be really good at like pivoting. Like you have to know how to adapt and pivot.
So my, a lot of my goals for myself are just more general, like very general goals.
for myself are just more general, like very general goals. Um, I, I would like to see my
account being much more like, like I said, like bold Leonidas. Like I want to just make art from
my account, be posting daily comics, um, every day with this character and posting, you know, memes or the news or whatever is going on.
But I'm also open to whatever, like, opportunities come my way. Because I think the space,
like I said, like, the space changes so much. Like, you kind of have to be open to adapting your plans do does having like a bridge between
web 3 and web 2 is that in your vision at all like expanding this like say say solana dies at the end
of this year and sui takes over or kadano finally figures their shit out and they become the dominant hell one
now that's a meme you know like what what are your plans are we just web 3 solely focused and
writing that meta even through the next bear are there any like intentional bridges to build that
web 2 audience and expand you know beyond the trenches?
Right now, I'm very focused on just, you know, crypto art and memes. And I'm very comfortable with what I'm doing here.
And I feel like it's working for me and it's been working for me.
But I am also very open to building an account like Instagram, like how Nub does.
I think Nub is like a really good example of running an art account and an art coin.
They're just doing an amazing job.
And they're super viral on Instagram.
And I see my friends who are like, they don't know anything about crypto
sharing the Nubcat. So like, I would love like, like, like long term to do something like that.
But right now, I'm just so busy and focused on what I'm doing here. Like, I don't want to get
ahead of myself, but definitely could see myself doing that in the future. No, that's smart. I love that too. Cause I've kind of burned myself being all in on what's
just working in web three. And I lost sight of all the shit I did over the past decade
that popped off in web two. And I kind of just left audiences and everything vacant. I'm like,
oh shit, for me, I know I need that bridge, but still majority of my focus is here. And then it should easily transfer over there of what I'm doing here versus having to build in two separate silos.
Here's Web 2 content and here's Web 3 content.
So I really love that.
Monetization and brand building.
I've been watching and studying what you're doing and i
think you're putting on a clinic of capitalizing on that attention and whether it's merch taking
commissions can you expand a little bit on that because i think a lot of artists are like i'm
freelance only or i i'm only my art i gotta sell it as one-on-ones, you know, and this is with or without a token. Artists just kind of rely on just their art selling, especially in an art market that's
really an art bear market. You're expanding and finding these new opportunities. Are you
marketing yourself first because there's interest or are you listening to what the demand is of,
I would love some Trencher merch or, hey, can I pay you for this design and then you build a
service around it you know are people coming to you with the demand are you initiating it and
letting it be known that these are services and uh merch that you have available both so my like
I said like my initial priority and still my priority is momentum and visibility. So everything I did for the first,
just until the past week or so was free. Like the past month and a half, I haven't,
I've made zero dollars. I haven't made any money. Um, and a lot of the, or like pretty much all of
the honoraries, some people made donations, but like all of those I did for free just to just to like take advantage of the momentum and visibility and and like use that as like marketing.
But only in the past like week, I think I did I did the merch and then I started doing commissions for those honoraries.
So, yeah, so obviously, you know, like I can't work for free all the time.
So, you know, as an artist, like you do eventually have to think about monetizing your work.
But the first month I kind of took a sacrifice or I just made a sacrifice because I wanted,
I didn't want to like, I just, I wanted to take advantage of the momentum. I didn't,
that was my priority and not making money. Wasn't my priority.
Man, that's awesome. I like to see it as like you said earlier, slow cooks and very intentional,
um, making decisions based on long-term success. I like to view that what you did in like the first
two months, all the content, everything you were creating, even if it was for free or whatever,
like you're just making like templates for yourself to when the demand shows up like oh man i got this
archive of graphics i can repurpose i have this style developed for like the trencher starter
packs which can then lead to commissions i mean like i feel like you just set yourself up perfectly
for the demand where you have everything ready you know i think a lot of people don't see it that way um many artists are like i need to monetize asap i'm not successful
unless i'm doing this asap and i love how you patiently played and honestly you built this
world of your ip and let the demand kind of find you working monetize or capitalize on the attention
but then built the monetization channels from it and strike where the iron's hot like i think it's
i think it's awesome a lot of people would rush it and try to make a profit asap or they would
try and nuke the chart and just not play it right and then burn all those bridges immediately versus the slow cook. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, maybe like the,
the moral of this entire story is long-term thinking versus short-term
thinking. And I think that like a lot, I mean, crypto moves really fast.
So maybe that's why a lot of people here are short-term thinkers,
but like you have to be a long-term thinker. Like there's,
there are so many ways to make money in
crypto where you could make a lot of money really fast but you would burn so many bridges you could
you could ruin your reputation like for me I care so much about my reputation so I've never like
really made a lot of money here because I'm just slowly building connections and my reputation
people who I've worked with a
lot of people they know that I'm very honest and I have a good work ethic and I think that that
will serve me more in the long term versus if I had done anything extractive which I
I am proud to say I have never done anything like that
oh that's beautiful I love it and I think it's dangerous being a part
of an art meme coin token like this because there's been so much trust that's been demolished
by artists leveraging the momentum that something FWOG I think really capitalized let's just be
honest LSP Lambo Space Princess,
I got a shout out to my guides, my borough community, my art community as they were the
first ones to do an art meta meme coin, but the timing wasn't right. And then FWOG came around
and then just kicked off the whole art IP meta. And I feel like that was abused so many times
and ruined trust between investors and even collectors right now that, you know, really seeing the value in an
artist meme coin is kind of sus. So you've definitely, I think marketing and branding is
building like, know, and trust. How do people like you? How do people know you and how can
people trust you? And that earns the opportunities and the reward over time. So I feel like you've
really put in the work to earn that like, and trust especially over the years and what is it opportunities are a mixture
of success and luck or preparation and luck i feel like you're just at that epicenter and played it
correctly because you also surround yourself with the right people who you know can provide solid
advice to steer you away from the actual trench life of what we're known for of extractors and grifters here,
whether you're an artist or a KOL. So I absolutely commend you. And I want to make sure too,
I got like one more question. We can open it up. Go for it. I think yesterday, I believe,
my days are all cramming together right now. You mentioned you have a sick opportunity that
you can't wait to share is that something you can
expand on right now and then we can open it up people can start requesting right now too if they
want to jump up I'm sure a lot of people are going to ask about that and want to know about it but no
I can't say I can't say what it is yet I can't talk about it I honestly I don't know if I will
be able to like tease it I think it'll just be like,
when it happens, you'll see it and then you'll know it and then be like, oh shit. Whoa.
Okay. Well then my backup question before I give it up to everyone else, cause I selfishly want to ask it. You talked about not trading based on astrology,
you know, being very well aware of astrology and not making emotional decisions
on charts, but really paying attention to that lane instead and how that can make you aware
enough to be more intentional with your moves. Can you speak a little bit more towards that?
Because I know, especially like moon cycle trading is a big thing and I'm big in the world of like full moons kind
of mess with me as well as like my kiddos are completely different gremlins when there's a
full moon going on so how do you leverage that within the trading world I think it's so funny
that I've become like the astrology person that like everyone's like oh the Grizzle's the astrology person, because I kind of see myself as, like, an amateur,
like, or beginner astrology nerd, but, okay, basically, astrology is, like, I kind of see it
as, like, a weather report, so, like, it's, I mean, it's scientifically proven, right, that the full,
like, we know that the moon controls the tides of the ocean the like the moon's gravity affects the earth
i mean it's it's scientifically proven and on um
like on full moons we know statistically that like there are more accidents like er any like
er nurse can tell you that the er is crazy during a full moon. We just know like full moons are chaotic energy.
And if you look at any like, if you look at like the macros of like the economy or the
stock market, like obviously there are some outliers, but overall there are dips during
a full moon and there are pumps around a new moon.
And then, you know, so that's just the moon. The moon
is like a small rock with small gravity. And then we have all of the planets that are like huge,
massive, and they have like big gravity and their own weather patterns. So they affect the earth as
well. So it's just, astrology is just like tracking when the planets are moving in the sky, where they're moving and how that's going to affect us, basically.
So, yeah, so I use it to make decisions in my life.
Well, especially said, hey, astrology is not looking good for this set of days.
But for these sets of days, you know, can you expand on that one tweet a little bit more so
people just keep their heads on straight? Okay, so like if you think of like if you're taking if
you want to take your kids to the beach, right, like you're not going to go during a thunderstorm,
you want to take them during like a really nice sunny day. So astrology is the same. Like if there
is bad, like money astrology going on, you wouldn't want to be making like signing a financial
contract during that time. Like you kind of just want to lay low and wait until the astrology is
better. Or if like you're going on a date, you don't want to go on a date when the astrology is
like angry and chaotic. You want to go when it's like cutesy and like romantic and soft. So it's
just like, it's just like weather. like you just pick a day yeah so anyways
the astrology is good from today until july 3rd it's good we're gonna we're we're getting through
all the shit that has been going on the past week right let's just hope no quick u.s involvement
and escalation and we get some rate cuts eventually maybe in july and then we just full send where trencher and everything else that
is a quality meme coin and token you know we get that old season going into the summer sometime
around there but um looks like someone was trying to join i sent an invite to wireless but i mean i
have more questions i can keep going to but this is the time if you want to talk to grizz ask
questions um we'll have a harder stop at the top of the hour.
Is there anything you want to specifically talk about before I keep hogging the mic?
Oh, man, there was something I was going to say before when you said something, but I forgot.
So maybe I'll remember when maybe like somebody will ask about it.
All right. I know Gigi keeps trying trying to join but it won't connect for them
i guess my little question then would be if an artist isn't launching a token
what are three quick things they could be doing now to start gaining more traction on their art
and their brand and their business that you have found success in.
I mean, just creating every single day and being consistent.
Like consistency is the most important thing.
Like finding your style and also trying new things.
Something that I'd love to repeat this thing that Mike 3 tweeted once.
Love to repeat this thing that Mike three tweeted once.
That's like, if you make a piece of art and you post it and you don't have a bunch of
comments that are like, when NFT, then it's not good and make a new art.
And like, he kind of said that in like tongue in cheek, but like, I take it really seriously.
Like if I make something and people are not like when NFT, when NFT, that means that they
don't like it that much.
So then i just need
i know i need to revise it so be consistent draw share daily don't be afraid to try new things
try new things develop your style and don't be afraid to promote yourself i think it's it's that
delicate blend of maybe the algo is just not sharing your shit today it doesn't mean your
shit sucks but also like if you've been kind of sharing the same stuff over and over and over again getting in front of
people and like there isn't engagement around it that shows you're on the right path then yeah
absolutely pivot keep refining yeah exactly all right well gg left again so they must be having
some serious issues but okay we got wireless up here yo wireless what's good hey sorry for crashing your thing grizzle hey wire i was gonna ask you
if you wanted to come up but i forgot i was i was sending her an invite so yeah i knew you
had asked originally i'm like yeah let's get her up on this point no i didn't ask. I forgot to ask. But she's here.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did want to say one thing about making the decision and like guiding you through it and kind of what happened with Trencher.
I think it's like the timing was really crazy because I think it happened maybe a week or like 10 days or something like that after all of the coin
everything narrative and I had just put out a video that went viral and it was talking about
like what I think was the best move for artists or if coining everything is a good idea and in
that video I was saying you know I think it's better like ultimately best for an artist
if they have a small supply basically of something that's running hugely like a main runner compared
to having a larger supply of something that is not taking off um and like in that video i address a
lot of things it's just so crazy to me that like a week later, that whole situation played out. So we kind of had the playbook, like before it even happened. And I think that kind of fast tracked our decision making.
I think I just pinned the right video on the Jumbotron in case anybody is wanting some more context around that is that right tokenizing everything
a good idea let's talk about it from the 17th of april i think so um oh yeah that's the one
that's the one word yeah gris sent me that one so perfect yeah i think that a lot of people have
reached out a lot of artists have reached out to me and they're like oh how did you do this thing
with trencher and like i want to do that. How can I do that?
And like, like Wire said, it, it was kind of just like the stars aligned.
Like it was really weird.
A lot of things happened in the week before it went, it went viral where like I had made
connections with certain people who ended up like supporting it.
And then the whole thing with base, there were just so many weird things
that it really was like written in the stars.
I really do think that it was.
Universe works in mysterious ways.
Wireless, can you speak before we pivot to Gigi
and give them some spotlight?
Can you speak about your time in the space
and like being an artist, brand building,
but the chaos in this space as well is there anything
that you can add to the gems that we've been extracting from Grizz because clearly you seem
to know your shit really well too yeah um I mean I don't want to like take up too much time but I
joined around the same time Grizzle joined I think we, we met through Goblin Town. We were both, like,
day one holders. And I think there's, like, seriously not been a day since that I haven't
been, like, talking to the goblins that I met there or in the goblin chat. And eventually,
I wound up working for Goblin Town, which is kind of crazy. But yeah, I've always been more on like the maybe like Degen side of things.
And I think what was interesting about kind of Goblin Town, which later evolved into like my philosophy on meme coins, is that there were no promises. Joining early 2022, you saw a lot of people who were promising like roadmaps and long-term visions and like doxed founders and all these things that give you like a false sense of security.
And meme coins and like Goblin Town and crazy NFTs are the opposite of that. Most think it's like more honest because you're just bidding on silliness and attention and virality compared to like being, I don't know, lured into a false sense of security by a team that's like promising things that will probably never happen.
So, yeah, I started a couple of years ago.
Eventually, when NFT started becoming less interesting, I switched to meme coins.
And then from ETH meme coins into soul meme coins.
That's kind of where we are now.
No, I love it.
I think it's dope that you all met through that and were able to be there exactly when she needed you for this. So yeah, it sounds
like it all was divine intervention. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think a lot of people think like
this happened overnight for Grizzle, which in a literal sense, like, okay, maybe it did literally
happen overnight. But I've seen her for years and years working towards this. And like when it
happened, one of the things I said to her was like, there was some phrase I'd seen that said, luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
And that's like exactly what happened to Grizzle. She's been working so hard. You know, so many
people can't handle the pressure or the bad markets they leave. She never left. She never
stopped doing, you know, developing her skills and then finally
when the opportunity happened she was able to seize it and I think that's amazing um so yeah
like it it did take a little bit of luck but really what it took was like her years of commitment
towards making this happen I think I feel like this is the blueprint to become an overnight success
of what everybody sees on the outside but really it's just the compounding grind behind the scenes
all the hours that nobody fucking notices behind a closed door when you could be looking at meme
corn charts you could be gaming whatever it like, yeah, opportunities come to those who work their asses off for it.
Yeah. And also like things can change so quickly in crypto.
So like I know a lot of people are feeling maybe out of luck or like they're feeling hopeless and the market's terrible and all these things.
And like those things are true, but they can also change so quickly
yeah so I definitely think that you I mean you have to have like a really strong mindset to
to like make it because you do have to get it it doesn't happen like overnight like you don't just
like show up here and then like find immediate success.
You really do have to like find your place and develop your skills and your connections.
And you have to just like keep pushing through that and believe that like, okay, like eventually that opportunity will come.
And for me, it was – it's so funny because so many people have been like, she's an industry plant.
Like she just came out of nowhere.
And it's like, no, I've been here every single day for three years, like suffering and grinding,
like staying, like not sleeping because I'm working so hard for free on so many things
and just waiting for the right opportunity to come.
And then it came and it just happened to be this, which is like really exciting.
Yeah.
And I also think it was really important that you were there and like we were already using
pump.
We were already trenching.
Like Alon had cold DM'd me before pump was ever.
I'm pretty sure I was like one of the first people to ever talk about pump.
But point being, like we're super familiar with how this goes
so that helped you with all the decisions of like oh should i be accepting supply from all of these
people or do i know that they're vamping or do i know this or that like there's a lot of
tricky things where i think if you genuinely were just like a web two artist, um, especially if you
didn't have any like advice, but if you were just a web two artist who went viral, it would be
really difficult to navigate, um, what to do. I mean, and so I think the fact that Grizzle was
there and she knows what pump is and she knows how, you know, distribution works or wallet
donations and all these other things like
helped her tremendously like i had no idea i've been in web3 well crypto since 2017 and solana
since 2021 and i clearly i'm not in the trenches enough where i didn't even know like vamping or
anything people were asking me for my wallet i'm like oh people are just being nice because
they're profiting off my art in the beginning.
I'm just finding out.
And I just say, OK, hey, I support this.
You know, and I had no idea about the vamping stuff.
You know, I had no one guiding me.
It was I was literally having a panic attack with all this shit between DMs.
Everybody hit me up.
Like I was like, wow, this is overwhelming.
Yeah.
And like the crazy thing is, too, a lot of people are very quick to say like, oh, you should have just made your own.
You should have just launched your own thing after.
But the thing is, especially in Grizzle's position, this coin was already running.
It was already at like almost a million market cap with like thousands and thousands of people in that coin community holding.
And in my opinion, you have to look at what's best for the artist holistically.
Like it's not actually best for Grizzle if she launches her own thing and like, yeah,
maybe she has more supply, but now she has 5,000 people who are, who turned from like
fans to extremely hating on her
and trying to dox her or harass her
because she just fucked over that coin.
So you have to look at it a little more holistically
and think like, okay, what's the best balance
between benefiting from this and exposure
and also reducing the harassment level?
And I think it's also nice that Grizzle
didn't even make this coin. So she doesn't have to worry about any of these like, crazy people
with their, I don't know, dev allegations, or all kinds of things that you see happen. Like I've
seen so many people, that's part of why I made that whole tokenizing everything video is because
I've seen the
harassment that people get and it's not something that you would want to throw somebody into as
their first experience in crypto man I got grilled so many times like I I just wanted to do something
to support artists since it was a bam token based on my job through bonk and just saying on a super
huge volume green day i pulled like one sole profit to then put back into the art ecosystem
and buy some physical art to support artists holy shit i got called a scammer an extractor
i'm like what what it didn't even affect the charts and what level is it okay for me to monetize off
someone stealing my shit?
Like what market cap is suitable for you, my friend, with all the work I'm doing?
Like what?
People think they know best for an artist.
You can't expect these people to be rational in any sense.
You know, like we all know how it goes.
But still, when it's a volume you know to that level
where it's not just like 10 or 20 people it's like thousands of people yeah you don't want to
put somebody in that situation where they're becoming a target without realizing it um
yeah so that was I think that was a huge reason and also the other reason is that
I know creator fees are a
thing now but creator fees were not a thing when trencher came out so the dev was already out
cleanly um that only became a factor after the point i think like three to four weeks after
trencher came out yeah it was three weeks after crazy well do you have coming up plans then to
be like part of the pump streaming family and everything no okay no streaming is not my thing
I it's yeah it's just like not my medium and also like I have I have adhd like my art process is so chaotic so like streaming my
art process would would not be interesting but also like in order to do pump streaming
i would have to launch my own coin and vamp trencher oh okay there's like no benefit to
me doing yeah that makes no sense yeah i'm hoping that they'll let people stream on behalf of any coin in the future.
I think that would be like a lot of fun.
They're missing a huge opportunity with you right now, in my opinion.
I'm really curious, like, when they make the change with the creator rewards, which I'm curious of like when is that happening but like when they make that change
and switch over the trencher creator fees to my to me will that give me access to stream I'm yeah
I'm really curious of how that I don't think I don't think it would yeah me either I don't think
it will either but I don't know yeah and I'm not expecting to do streams either,
just because, like, from my perspective,
I think it's better to make a short clip
that's packed with interesting things
than have, like, a longer-duration livestream
where maybe it's not as interesting,
but, like, you can extract a few moments,
but then you have to clip it anyway and put it on socials.
So I'm like, well, you might as well just get to the point and like film it and put it on Twitter.
But live streaming is just a whole different beast from like other forms of content creation.
It definitely works for some people, but I think you have to be very intentional to fill up all that time
yeah not me I think I would be better off doing like a time-lapse art video than somebody watching
me chaotically shift around in my desk for an for an hour or two hours I think it just comes down
to knowing your strengths knowing your weaknesses I mean you still do a great job of like taking a photo of yourself with your work.
So building that like, know, and trust factor, that personal brand, the personal within a brand.
So I feel like clearly that's working.
Yeah.
I've seen people say that Grizzle's AI.
Like that's not even enough for people.
They're like, no, this picture is not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People, Scotty, people keep telling me that i need to go on stream to
prove that i'm a real person they keep telling me that i'm ai because these like large female
account larts out there i guess i don't blame i mean i don't blame them like there's definitely
more catfishing happening than not but like it's also like, come on, dude.
These pictures are clearly not AI.
Why?
Tell them that you've met me.
Like, we've hung out in person.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Can't confirm.
She might be AI.
Yeah.
Everything's sus these days.
I'm not AI i swear and we have proof we're not um alts now i guess yeah i'm like hey send them to this now you're good send them to this if they still say it's ai then they just have serious
issues were people saying that me and you are the same account? Like the same person, yeah.
But like, I don't know.
I enjoy like leaning into the allegations.
I like to collect the fun allegations.
Where they say like, all press is good press, right?
Yeah.
All right.
Was there anything else that we want to put a little cherry on top of this
before we let everybody go and enjoy the rest of their week into the weekend?
I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think I have anything.
Well, I'm grateful Wireless was able to come up
because I know Grizz was wanting Wireless on this episode. I'm like, I just want to spotlight you right now, but was able to come up because i know grizz was wanting wireless
on this episode i'm like i just want to spotlight you right now but wireless should totally come up
anyway so i made sure to invite and yeah this worked out perfectly thanks for inviting me up
um i didn't even notice the invite i was just kind of passively listening
yeah no i was i was glad you said it though i was glad you said it because then I heard it I was like oh shit
no that's awesome
and thank you for doing such a good job
with Grizzle's interview
I could tell that you really kind of did your research
and you were asking really thoughtful questions
I know
Grizzle has considered
other interviews but this was like
couldn't have asked for a better
interview for Grizzle I think you did an awesome job yeah thank you so much i for me i was i was
i've been waiting for the right interview because i wanted to have like a meaningful conversation
about art and when i heard your interview with bangers i was like oh yeah this is this is perfect
fit for me so i really even the astrology question i was like wow this guy yeah, this is this is a perfect fit for me. So I really even the astrology question. I was like, wow, this guy like he nailed it. Oh, man, I want to I want to extract all the golden nuggets because I work with a decent amount of students here and not every path is the right path.
So if we can bring a ton of different angles into the conversation, then, you know, it just might be the little catalyst that, you know, sets them up for the next big movement, you know.
So I think it's super important, but I think it's fascinating as well.
Different unique angles of blending art, business, personal brand building within Web3 and trenches and meme coins.
I'm like, what other space do we get to combine all this weird and crazy shit that we love and so interested in that overlaps all these different things?
Like, man, we are so lucky, even if art markets feel dead and meme coins are stealing attention.
Like, what a time to be alive.
Yeah, for real.
And like, I know Grizzle mentioned ADD vibes.
I just love that there's like something new and something different happening every day,
like every moment. It seems like, you know, I actually joke to a lot of people. I'm like,
yeah, being in crypto, it's almost like living in a reality show in some sense, because every day
there's like some new drama unfolding or like some scandal or, you know, or zach xvt or just you know there's
crazy things happening every day and you just you never know what like the next day or week or month
will bring you it's perfect actually for creators because there's always new content to work with
it is just i'm i'm never bored i have fun every single day for for years i've never gotten sick
of it or burnt out.
Same.
I feel like that's an important note right there.
It's like, what game are you playing?
Are you truly like part of the ecosystem,
the community, the conversation?
Or are you like true fine artists
who are leveraging this community,
building that audience,
but you're just like truly focused
on your storytelling, your narrative.
Like you're building your IP,
but you leverage
the trends and the commentary, you know, that's just a powerful game over here while someone else
is just, I'm leveraging this to build my comic, you know, and I don't really care about
any of the commentary or the day to day. I'm just like focused on my own shit. So I think it's just
a powerful way you can play two different games or multiple different games, see what works for
this person, see what works for this person.
See what works for that person.
Figure out what works best for you instead of trying to copy someone else's blueprint.
Yeah, totally.
And like, I love that Grizzle is able to use Trencher to kind of make jokes about these everyday situations that are happening.
And the honoraries too.
I think those landed amazingly with people.
Yeah, there was a lot of PFPs in here as well of people rocking the custom.
So I have to get into dad mode.
I just want to say thank you so much.
How can people go and support you?
feel free to give a shill here you deserve it with all the value provided
Feel free to give a shill here.
You deserve it with all the value provided.
well the merch is closed now but if people want to you know represent the art with a pfp or get
an honorary you could dm me i'm i'm i am booked out for like almost a month at this point but
i will add anyone to the wait list who wants to be added can you share a current price or does
it keep going up based on demand or you can't really give a set price right now?
It depends on what they want.
So I'll go through it in DMs with them on whether they want a PFP or a full body.
You have some tiered pricing based on what someone wants.
Perfect.
Spoken like a true freelance business.
I love it.
Oh, yeah.
There's a little nugget for people right there, too.
All right. Well, I appreciate you all. oh yeah there's a little nugget for people right there too all right well i appreciate y'all i
will definitely be writing a thread because there's so many takeaways i was able to document
here um i would say this conversation just a real testament to the mindset and the grit
required to turn that adversity into an advantage within this creator attention economy we're in so
if you enjoyed today's episode be sure to follow follow the show, share it with your homies, and set a reminder for every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time for the next
episode of Grind to Growth. So keep showing up, keep putting the work, keep creating. Peace.
Thanks, Scotty. Appreciate you.
Later.
