Hello and welcome everybody. We will be getting started shortly while we wait for Xeno to come in. If you do have a second go to the bottom right-hand corner, press on the chat bubble and drop a quick like comment and retweet on the space so we can get more people in here. But I think you guys were coming out here and we'll get started as soon as Xeno joins. So thank you guys.
Hey guys, how's it going?
Xeno welcome. I appreciate you coming up here and chatting with us. Today has been a fantastic day for me. I just got out of some other meetings and now I'm enjoying my time on Twitter. How was your day been?
Yeah, pretty good. Thank you. Thanks for having me as well. Yeah, so it's like still kind of the morning for me 11.30. I've been getting ahead on some art that's online to do this today and doing just like
Community stuff in my discord had the lower competition voting to tally up so got that oil done this morning so yeah the usual community and art basically
Yeah, that's awesome. That's a bucket list goal to have for a lot of artists. So you're living the dream out here, both not your community, doing your art and enjoying yourself. And I appreciate you taking your time out of the day to sit here and talk more about yourself. I always want to learn more about artists. I'm a big fan of Zeno.
I have a couple of Zen Overses myself and I love what you got going on there. So once again, I can't thank you enough for popping up on our show. But real quick, everyone, thank you for being here. This is Making Time for Zen O. This is a daily space that I hold where it's for creators by creators where we learn more about artists, space hosts, project owners, and everything along
the lines in the space. So if you guys could take a second, I have pinned the space to the top as well as there is the chat bubble on the bottom right corner of the space. Please go ahead and drop a like, comment and retweet so we can get more people in here learning about Zeno. But without further ado, Zeno, we'll go to W3.
What got me into web 3? So I was initially there's like a few different things that kind of converged that I've talked about before some people probably have heard this story from me, but for those that haven't I was interested in
The art side of crypto that I had seen on Ethereum and I'd kind of seen like inclinings of like crypto punks and stuff and I just always thought the tech seemed really cool. I always saw like the cool side of it before I saw any of the Chris of it. It just didn't really occur to me like, you know, how that could be a really bad thing.
still a lot of potential in that. So I was looking a lot into art on Ethereum and I'd never heard of Salana. This was kind of mid 2021. And then my brother, like a few months later, found Salana and was like flipping really light.
the really really early days of like Dejan Mince like Lama's and Bob Badgers and that kind of thing and told me about that and I was like oh wow that sounds like you know some easy money I want to do that so that's how I found Solano but of course it was nice
the degenments that I actually found that, well, A, I was any good at and B, I enjoyed, it's not really my thing, I actually discovered the community here on Solana and was like, hey, that's exactly what I'm interested in, but it seems way more accessible than the stuff on Ethereum. And yeah, that's how it has exactly how
a little bit different, right? Their stories come from purely art backgrounds and tokenizing the art and so on and so forth. So what was your experience like being a new artist in the space and how did you go about kind of starting? So I mean my experience was so positive here on on Sol. That was what like instantly
captured me and why I'm still here today, even if we are down however much percent the community just really really got me. So I started out because I joined the Scalant and Crew Discord because I was really excited to mint their project back in October 21.
And I really enjoyed the community there. It seemed very chill. It was very different to like the DGN stuff. It was like very organic and I was like, hey, this is really nice. Actually really like this. And they were doing drops for like independent artists. So this was my introduction to the fact that Salon had an art community. I didn't know this until then. I was like,
Hey, there's like, oh, it's just kind of like budding here. And I had been making pixel art in my spare time. I hadn't thought about releasing any of it like really seriously on the blockchain. That soon, I was kind of just playing around with it for fun. And I saw these other artists doing artwork to be ad-drop
to the scout and crew holders as part of their month of Air Drops in October and just decided to be like, "Hey, it's great. Let me give this a go" and applied to collaborate with them on those terms and showed them my Twitter, showed them the pixel art that I've been posting for fun and they really liked it.
and was like, yeah, definitely do some pieces for us and we'll drop them. So that was like how I literally got started. I just adropped these AFTs for free. It was like three different editions and I normally refer to them as my skeleton crew adrops now in my discordant stuff. You can buy them on my YouTube
and don't buy them on Magic Heads today, though, just don't maybe don't go on Magic Heads today. You can also buy them on an exchange art, but I don't think there's any listed on there right now. And yeah, yeah, drop them to the community for free and had no idea what to expect. I was just like super, super stoked that I had this opportunity to show my art tools.
these people. I didn't realize that we'd actually want to collect it so desperately. And everybody really loved it and was like, so was your full collection coming out and all this kind of thing. And I was like, well, guess it better work on a full collection. So that's how I got started. And I guess like to summarize the way that worked for me as a new artist in the scene, because like, no, we didn't do.
like who I was a new epics or anything. The way that it kind of worked for me was by integrating myself into a community as a genuine member. Like I didn't join that community to try and sell out work or anything. I just liked the community and genuinely got to know the people in the community. And I guess I didn't set out just like trying to extract a little more
money. First of all, I just wanted to share my artwork. I didn't take any payment for it, except for the royalties. And like just, yeah, go into it with like a very genuine mindset, be willing to like give to the community before you try and take from it. And that seemed to be what worked out for me.
Yeah, and I think it's awesome. And I think what's awesome about your story, Zeno is every step you've taken has had community involved in it in one way or another, right? You started with Skeleton Crew and really became acclimated to what's going on there and becoming friends with those people. And then you just decided kind of out of the blue to take the jump. You know, you said,
Let me put some art into this. And then that's kind of how you've grown from that. So it's been interesting to see you in the Zeno community and the Zeno Discord grow over time. So how have you been growing your community and what kind of inter-armature
over my own words here. But what have you learned from going a community in on Solana in web 3? I definitely a whole lot because it's funny when I first got into the space like way way back before I released anything and I just had this inkling of wanting to release my art as NFTs the big blocker
my head was always "Ah, but it seems like these things always have like discord servers and like twitters and stuff and I don't want to do any of that because it seems like something that maybe I won't be very good at or something that kind of scares me." So at first I was really, really hesitant and that was a big barrier to me.
to release my artwork and like pursue this because I was afraid of that community building aspect. But after jumping into it, I realized that it's not easy, it takes a lot of time, but it's something that I'm a lot more capable of than I thought. And I think like what I learned was to
Again, just to be genuine, figure out what it is about you that you want to build around and build around that rather than trying to emulate what the people do, like try to force hype and building things up really suddenly or anything. I just did it very, very gradually.
inviting in people that I had met to like kick my discord off and like get it started on a good note and then just gradually bring more people in very slowly. Right at the beginning I wanted to do things that would help get people taking part in the community. So I straight
way did a- actually I did a law competition today but going way back to when I first opened my discord the first thing I did was a law competition with Solson sets because RGB reached out to me and I was like holy crap this guy's amazing I can't believe he was dealing with me and he was like oh you want to do a competition or something between our communities because they seem kind of
similar. So I did that and that worked on a few different counts because it got people involved, it got people thinking about the artwork creatively and not thinking about things that I didn't want them to think about like price. I didn't want it to be a discord like focused on the market and the price and stuff. I wanted it to be focused on the art. So I geared everything towards that.
and what it also did was created a little bridge between a similar community and my community to help people start coming over. So people from Solson sets would discover me this way and be like, "Hey, I really like Pixlart. This is Pixlart too. I'm gonna check that out." And just trying to gradually
absorb from like nearby and relevant things and starting small and just doing it steadily, keeping all the community members at heart all the time or thinking about like what can I do to make this experience more engaging for them or like more positive for them, what is the kind of spirit
that I want to foster here and how can I encourage that? So, you know, even just down to the way that I set up the different chat channels, I was always keep on these things in mind. I'm not sure how well that has to be a question, but that's kind of like, yeah, the way that I've always been thinking about it, and I don't really do anything different, to be honest, even today.
Yeah, for sure. I mean you entered my question pretty well and I think one thing that's shown here is One authenticity I think it'll be through and in the way you talk about your community and what you've done for your community But I also think there's a sense of consistency there as well, right? You since day one of creating your community you've been showing up you've been saying your genius
You've been replying to people, been pretty awesome about facilitating growth and facilitating relationships with your collectors or just people who pop in and I think that's fantastic. So you didn't mention you had a collaboration with RGB pretty early on with Soul Sunsets and you said you were fascinated by his work and you were enthused to be able to work with him.
So have you always been interested in the pixel art genre or what is your artistic like what are the roots of your artistic journey? Yeah, so pixel is like yes I always have but at the same time it's relatively quite new to me as well and some
So my I've always been involved in art of like lots of different forms ever since I was really young. It's all I've ever wanted to do. I studied like general art through school and college. I studied and worked in graphic design and then more relevantly and more
Recently I pursued a career in the games industry and that's where I worked for the past six or probably approaching seven years now. So my roots in our very diverse but are primarily rooted in video games. So you can definitely see that inspiration or that influence in my work. In terms of pixel art, that
was like the serious involvement of Pixlar is quite new, like literally when I discovered NFTs was around the same time that I'd started doubling in Pixlar. But it's not like the first time I'd ever done it or the first time I'd ever noticed it, I'd always loved it like you know some of my favorite all-time games like Pokemon
and things that definitely influenced that appreciation for Pixlava, I've always liked to nostalgic style and the retro style and stuff. But yeah, it's not something that I'd really done professionally until I started NFTs.
Yeah, for sure. It's interesting that you just recently relatively recently got into pixel art and you've already been able to establish which you've had, like build out Zeniverse and build out all the artwork you have. So you didn't mention you do some professional work in the gaming industry. So how do you juggle your web 3.
So for a long time, I was doing that full time alongside well essentially working full time in FT as well as you counted it hours wise. And I would say I didn't balance it very healthily. It was a compromise basically.
was just working a lot, all hours all the time. So how did I balance it? I managed to, I guess, is what I would say. More recently, like to what was the second half of last year, I left my full-time job in games and took on freelance jobs in
Sorry my phone just rang. Oh yeah my phone my phone was ringing sorry about that. Where was it? Yeah so towards the second half
Sorry, my doorbell keeps ringing. Tells us a second half of last year, I moved to a freelance role in games instead because I knew that I had something here in Web 3 and I really really wanted to pursue it more seriously and I didn't want to let it get away from me essentially. I wanted to like capitalize on
the attention that I had on me at the time and Show everybody as well like I'm serious about this So I want to make this like my thing. So yeah, I started taking on freelance products instead less my long long-term job the company that had been with since I graduated and Was like yeah, let's let's do this so now I have the
a much much more preferable balance where if I need to I can take on extra hours in my freelance work and if I need more time to focus on my personal art or if like the market's doing well and my personal like sales are doing well then I can ease off on freelance work a little bit and just lean into which
that was really my goal. I didn't want to make like a I wanted to like be more um um what's the word like risk of us I guess with with that decision and I also didn't want to leave the games industry behind completely like I absolutely love making Pixar here on Sol and I do it pretty much all day every day
But I also love the games industry and I want to keep my skills in that industry sharp. And I want to keep building that side of my portfolio and stuff as well. So yeah, I'm gradually moving towards a better balance between those two sides of my work and my art.
Yeah, so it seems like you kind of opted for less, do the object or do the wrong way on words. Then you're making me nervous, then I apologize, but it looks like you opted for a less stable career, right? You've taken a little bit of a risk on yourself, you know?
going down this pursuit of Web 3 in the tokenization of your art and so on and so forth. So what did it feel like when you did decide to make that bet on yourself and then move to that freelancing? And that would have been more freelance jobs. Yeah, like I mean it was definitely scary. I'm and excited.
at the same time, which I think most of the best things in life kind of are. I was nervous of leaving behind this job that I was so familiar with. I was nervous about the market. I was excited about being able to really put
everything into the work that I was doing here because it's why I'm so passionate about. And yeah, I was just uncertain, like I was really taking a big leap, even though I'd set things up in a way where I wasn't too worried, like I had a freelance client lined up that I know would give me as many hours as I needed.
had reserves, you know, like savings, so I knew I could support myself and my wife. So, you know, even though I had those like tangible, like feelings of security, it was still scary because everybody is afraid of failure, I think, right? Like, what if I do this and then suddenly everybody doesn't care about my own animals?
and I have to go crawling back. There's always that feeling as well, but so far I think it's gone really well. Probably the funny kind of funniest part is how I thought, I naively thought I would have more time. I think it's like this age old thing right of like
You quit your 9 to 5 to follow your passion, but you just end up working 24/7 instead. I seem to have managed to have more work now than when I had a full time job as well. I don't know how I managed to do that, but hey, at least it's my passion, so I can't really complain.
Yeah, for sure. And I'm proud of you for being able to take that leap, right, and really take that bet on yourself and pursue this opportunity that's been presented to you because that's intimidating for a lot of people. It's difficult to make that decision. It's they got they they worry too much about it or it's just something
that's a little bit too complicated for them. So a question I have for you is you're taking this bet on yourself and you could argue it is working out or maybe it isn't. You're working these long hours, you're working basically 24/7. So have there been experiences in your life where you took a bet on yourself and you failed?
That's a good question and I think like something I've really learned throughout my career is to look at failure in a very different way than what we're probably taught when we're younger or how we grow up feeling and to kind of like almost like try and fail in a in a weird way because it helps you figure out how to succeed I think
And if you and if you're too afraid of failure, I don't think you'll ever succeed because you won't try anything. But other anytime I've taken a leap and maybe failed. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are. I mean, I've tried a lot of different things in my life before I found where I
I'm now like, you know, when I was younger, I wanted to be a web designer and in a way I succeeded because I did do that for a while, but it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I guess in a way you could say that that was a like a failure along along the road of finding what my like ultimate thing that I wanted to do was
And I went to uni and dropped out after a year because I wanted to do games instead. And then I got a job in graphic design and quit after a year because again I wanted to do games instead and then I went to uni and did games and then I actually graduated and got job in
game. So yeah, I don't know, long like roundabout wave saying, for sure, it's been a big winding path, definitely, definitely. Yeah. And one thing I've kind of gotten as a motif from all the speakers I've had on making time so far is looking forward, you can't really connect the dots, right?
It doesn't really make sense. You can never predict where you might be. But looking backwards, it always makes sense. Like you said, you try these different jobs, these different careers. You went to school for a year, then dropped out, then went back to school, and then took on gaming, and then delve further into that field. So I think it's interesting how life takes
down these paths. If you don't try and fail, you might not end up where you should be. You might not end up anywhere at all. I think it's awesome that you have that perspective on failure and I think it's something more people should be embracing. One thing that I've seen in space, and of course I don't speak for everybody now, might be generalizing here, is that
There are a lot of artists that try to break into the scene and maybe try to publish art and get people to look at their stuff on form function exchange art and they fail. They're not able to grow, they're not able to facilitate what their goal is as an artist. So my question for you is, when you see artists like this, how would
What recommendations would you make to them to maybe improve, help them improve or help them kind of get to where they want to be as an artist? I think it's a really difficult one because I always find myself giving two pieces of quite conflicting feedback on this, right? Because on the one hand, you
have to stick with it. You have to persevere. You have to accept that these things take time and it's not going to happen overnight. So you have to just keep doing it and consistently keep doing it every day. But on the other hand, if your approach is maybe wrong, then you also need to stop doing that and do something else.
So I think it takes quite an analytical view on what you're doing and why it's not working so you can figure out if you do need to switch gears or if it's simply just a case of you just needing to keep building on the same thing that you're doing and just give it more time. Like is it just that I haven't given people enough time to notice me? Is it because I just need to
continue building up this trust and engagement in the community. Or is it maybe because I'm like maybe I'm not engaging with the community and I'm just like shilling my work all the time so people don't care about it then I would say maybe you need to change your strategy. Is it because like I know maybe the market just isn't
to my art right now, which might be, you know, that could be the case as well. Like should I just like maybe keep developing my style, should I experiment more? And even in that case, maybe you shouldn't, like why are you making art? You know, you're making this art because it's the art that you really want to make. I definitely wouldn't want to change my art to suit the market. So I feel like
like a lot of like really different ways that you could answer that question for yourself but the way to start is probably to be very evaluative and consider what you're doing, observe what otherwise doing and consider why that might be working for them, don't copy what they're doing, I think emulation I think is like one path to failure for sure and
originally it's definitely a path to success but consider like why is this all history taking off? What is it about how they do their marketing or how they engage with their collectors or like how they become known in the community? Like what is it that's making it work for them and how can I apply that to my own technique instead and make that work for me instead?
Yeah, absolutely. It's about taking what works for other people and applying that to yourself. And no two people are the same, right? And as a result, no two stories are the same. So look at taking inspiration from other people, but don't copy. You know, and adapt that to what works for you and go for
from there. And find your journey and take those steps and build your own community and be engaged and meet people. And then no one will be hold it with enough consistency and with enough effort you might get to where you want to be. So I love what you're mentioning and I think it's super helpful for new artists that are coming up in this space.
and want to have more exposure. You know, and want to be more like a Zen now. So a question I have for you about the arts based in general is, is there anything about the current state of Web 3 art or Salona art that you don't like and you think needs to be changed?
Yeah, I guess there has to be as much as I love the community here on Salana. There's definitely things that I would like. I don't want to say I think they're wrong and I want them to change, but directions I hope that we can evolve towards as a community. I would love to see more focus on
for arts sake and like appreciation of the art itself rather than necessarily like the speculative value of a piece of artwork and of course that works out well for us as well like you know if people are investing in my art I'm very grateful for that but it's the kind of like
growing the people in slarner who are interested in art is kind of a double-edged sword in the way because you get lots of new faces lots of new collectors but some of them might be coming in with slightly I don't want to say the wrong perspective but like a perspective that might not be conducive to like a healthy environment in the future people that just want to like
quickly come in and try and flip some art the next day and make a profit from it. Or maybe come in, we've lots of big demands that they want to see artists doing. You need to be given as all this utility or whatever. That's probably the side of things that I don't like so much, but I really hate to dwell on anything too negative in that
I like to see the net positive in all of this. I think that in the recent months, I've seen a huge influx of people coming over to the art side quote unquote from the DGN side. I think it's great to be honest. Some people are probably going to try and flip out and realize
that's a really bad idea and then leave and that's fine. Some people are probably going to be like, "Hey, you know what? Kind of like me at the start, right? Hey, I came here to try and make some money from flipping stuff. Actually, this art stuff ain't so bad. I really like this." They will stay and become real genuine collectors and stuff and that's what will really help lift
the ecosystem forward in the future. So I think like, yeah, a bit more like maturity in the approach, I think, to how we like collect art and talk about art is something that I would like to see grow in the future. Yeah. And I
I think one thing you mention that I fully agree with is one big upside of people from generative art coming into one of one is they get exposure and then they learn more about the space and then they become fully engaged with the space. And I can attest to this. I kind of, I spent most of my time in generative art scene and NFT projects and utility projects.
I started to fall in love with the space. I started to enjoy what's going on here. One person in particular really got me into the space, shout out, mechromaniac in the audience.
This guy told me on Zeno versus on day one and ever since then I've never looked back. So much love to mechromaniac here in the audience. I appreciate you, my man. But Zeno, so one thing you did mention earlier in the conversation is that you had a wife and I'm curious, like what is your wife and your family think about your, the bet you're making on Web 3?
So I'm really lucky. My close family has always been really supportive of that kind of thing. I have a family that's quite technically minded and artistically minded overall. So I think that's lent itself
really well to helping like kind of push me in this not like push me in this direction but allow me to follow this direction. So they not everybody like completely gets it right but they're kind of happy for me anyway and some people get it more than others in my family.
My wife is probably on the I'm happy for you, but I don't get it. But yeah, yeah, it's been really good. Like actually if anything right at the beginning they were probably trying to convince me that I could do it when I thought that I couldn't because
For those of you that don't know, Monster Friends have always actually been a thing in my life. I created Monster Friends a long time ago, before the blockchain existed, and used to doodle them all the time. I always wanted to turn them into something, whether it was merchandise or a cartoon or
a game and it wasn't until I discovered pixel R and then NFTs that I found that perfect application for them. So the concept of Monster Friends is something that my family has always known about as well. I always like kind of just for fun, we all would draw little doodles when I was making people like birthday cars or something that I was young
grand things with master friends on site. They've always existed. And when I started playing around with Pixlar and I was doing some super early versions of Pixlar, master friends, Pri Salana, but like around the time when I was starting to discover crypto art in general, like throwing around this idea of maybe this
could be where they fit. Maybe they could fit in crypto out somewhere. My family were kind of the ones that were like, "Yeah, we love them." This could really work. You should release one of those collections, the 10k collections that they do and stuff. This is when I was like, "Oh yeah, that sounds
cool but like can you imagine I have to run a discord and I'd have to like do this marketing and stuff like I don't know I'm just having fun making them kind of things so yeah I guess actually they really encouraged me in quite an important way probably
Yeah, I think that's awesome. I think one thing that a lot of people need in the space, especially when you're trying to do something, whether it be an artist or a project owner or anything along those lines, having that support system, whether that be your family or your friends or people you meet along the way, like having that is super important to help you know when to take that
next step or push you beyond your limits and really challenge what you know. But one thing you mentioned I thought was super interesting is you've always been drawing monster friends right they've been kind of popping up throughout your life as you've grown. So do you think that 12 year old Zeno would be proud of where you are now?
Oh man. Yeah, definitely, definitely. How could I say no? I'm like 29 year olds, and I was proud of where I am now. So 12 year olds and I would probably be like losing it. It's always been my goal to make
living from art and yeah sometimes I kind of forget to stop and acknowledge the fact that I've actually done it. So yeah definitely and also I think what's even funnier to think about is how my teachers at school would feel if they knew that Monster Friends became more than an annoyance that I would get told off for them for drawing them in my school books. I would love it.
I would love to just see the look on my face. Yeah, for sure. I can relate to that. I had a physics teacher in high school who really pushed me to do computer programming and so on and so forth. I didn't end up doing that spoilers. But I'm currently in Web 3. I'm in crypto. I'm doing all these business stuff. I'm interviewing
and one thing I think about that keeps me motivated is he would be so proud to know where I am today. And you mentioned your teachers, your teachers would be so proud to see that you made it, that you turned some annoyance that you would do to on your piece of the paper to something much larger, that has value for a lot more people. So we are coming pretty close to time, so I'm
I'm going to ask you two or three more questions and then we'll go ahead and wrap it up. But if you haven't already guys, thank you so much for showing up to today's space. I appreciate you guys listening to what Zeno has to say. This is making time a daily space held by Syndicate hosted by me where we interview creators. I will be posting a space shortly. Tomorrow we
will be interviewing artists outcast. Give me just a second to post that. But thank you guys for being here. I do appreciate you taking your time listening into this conversation. So, Zeno, it's been interesting learning about your journey. You've kind of, you've went to school, you decided to leave, you went back to school, you worked in the gaming industry and so on and so forth.
So was there a chapter of your life where you were kind of lost and you didn't really know what you were doing? Oh my god, yeah, completely. So I guess there's probably been a few times when I've been like that, but the first one that comes to mind is probably in that in-between period when
So I dropped out of uni doing graphic design, but then it wasn't like a failure It was actually because I decided to scrap just gonna go ahead and get a job in graphic design So like I dropped out but I got a job in the industry so that was kind of like a success in a way But after doing it for a while I still wasn't really satisfied and that was when I
quit my job in the design industry, but before I started my studies in the games industry, and I was just like, I hadn't really figured out why I wanted to do, I just knew it wasn't why I was doing, and I was definitely like a little bit lost for a while, like it was before I'd met like my
wife and it was like I kind of just had a relatively crappy job like in the service industry just like making a minimum wage or whatever and being kind of not very productive I guess like towards like my real goal in life and just you know sitting around
around like kind of mong and out playing games and things, worked out alright for me in the end but at the time probably not the best use of time. And yeah I don't know I think it was like it really randomly came to me after I was just browsing indie game on Tumblr that
I was like, "Hey, this is cool. I want to make some cool low-poly games or something." And, hey, this, like, pixel art is kind of cool too. Like, I was sort of, like, getting passionate about something again. Because I'd always played video games, but I never really thought about actually making them because it just seemed like that kind of too good to be true sort of thing.
Or like you know, maybe maybe my talent isn't enough for it And yeah, I've did just like spiraling and being lost and like you know feeling a little bit like hopeless for a while I was just like screw it I'm just gonna move to this different city. I'm just gonna apply for uni there I'm just gonna study games and then I'll have three years to figure out
that's what I'm going to do or not. And luckily I worked out. So yeah, definitely, definitely my life has not been a straight shot to where it is now. It has been all kinds of ups and downs for sure. Yeah. And then I'm glad you answered it the way you did. And it's incredibly relatable for a lot of people because I think one thing people tend to do is
she was super successful artistes, tend to place them on a pedestal, like, "Oh, his life is perfect," or, "Oh, he makes 100 full sales," or, "Oh, he makes way more money than I could ever envision making." When in reality, their journey was difficult to get to that point, right? More often than not, they had their downs. They had their ups, their downs, they've been
through it, but they made it up, right? They put in the work, they took risks on themselves and they figured it out, you know, but not everyone even figures it out. Some people are just winging it, you know, and I mean I'm winging it day by day and I'm sure most of us are. So, and one thing you mentioned and I think is valuable is believe it or not, basically everything is within arms,
right? It just takes a little bit of effort, you know, maybe taking a risk or going to that city or going to that school and before you know what you might end up where you want to be. But, Denno, it's been awesome to have you. I'm going to ask you one last question and we'll go ahead and wrap things up. So, if you had a start over in Web 3, would you do anything differently?
That's also a really hard one to answer because it's like, well, the way I did things meant that things went the way that they did. And I'm really happy with the way that things went. But I've also learned a lot of lessons along the way. I think I fell into things very head first, which didn't
Which was great because things took off very quickly for me, but also meant that I didn't really have a lot of time to sit and really really plan ahead and like Get like a lot of ammo ready, right? I was just kind of like Running on this like like sprinting on this treadmill just like gang things out to capture the attention that found
I wish I had more time to plan ahead and prepare and line up a lot of work so I could release it more steadily while working on other things. But I've kind of just been like, you know, just like full speed ahead the whole time. And I think that that like introspective and that preparation is really
valuable for an artist because once you do something on the blockchain, it's kind of there forever and it sort of feels very precious and very fragile in a sense. So I think running into things too quickly can be a mistake for us and I sort of found myself in a place where it was almost inevitable for me. So I sort of wish that I could have done things more
But at the same time I have to acknowledge that well I was taking advantage of the opportunities that were in front of me and it was a good thing I did so it's hard to say that I would do it differently But it's probably advice I would give to other people that might be in similar situations if they if they can think about it that way I would Probably
Yeah, I don't know. I think that's kind of the main thing for me. Like I said, the way everything worked out, I really wouldn't want to risk changing too much, right? Who knows which other fork it could have gone down if I'd done things differently. But yeah, I think taking things
steadily planning, refower ahead, taking your time to observe before you actually act. I think it's really, really important because strategy is everything for an artist in this space. A lot of people probably think that it's about artistic talent, but it's not. Obviously, that's going to get you pretty far, and it's pretty important, but it's not what
everything is resting on. There's plenty of artists that make like much less sales or something, or have much less followers than bigger artists in the space that are not necessarily less talented or anything. You really have to have like a piece from every angle to bring it all together into something.
that really works. And strategy is a huge, huge piece of that. So that's probably the main thing I would tell my past self. Yeah, of course, if the opportunity affords it, definitely takes some time out of your data to sit down and plan, you know, be a little bit strategic, you know, to give out, okay, when do I want to do this Twitter post or when do I want
to do this auction or do I have enough ammunition to make it for the month? Do I have stuff to keep people engaged or have stuff to grow my community? So I think it's super valuable. You didn't mention all of the mistakes and all of the opportunities you've taken up to this point have led you to where you are. You wouldn't be the Zeno you are today if anything
change. I'm very fortunate to have had the mistakes and had the lessons that I learned along the journey and without them I wouldn't be here and none of us would for that matter. But Zeno, it's been an awesome conversation. I enjoy you taking 30 minutes out of your day. Well, I guess we're running a little bit long, about 40 minutes out of your day to sit down and talk
with us so we can learn more about you and maybe learn some lessons from your experience and from your story. This is a daily show. This is Making Time by the Syndicate Network hosted by me, HV Socrates. We do have a show tomorrow at 3.30pm ESD. We will be interviewing one of one artist outcast. I'm a big fan of his as well. He will be
on tomorrow and we'll be chatting with him about what he's got going on in his story in Web 3. So if you're interested in learning more about him, please go to the top of the space I have pinned it. Set a reminder as well as drop a like comment and retweet so we can help get other people to learn more about Outcast. But before I rug this space then, do you have any closing thoughts?
I just want to say thanks so much for having me on and thank you to you personally as well for being a big like z University poor and now you hold a few pieces and everyone else in the audience that support me as well. I'm super super grateful. I guess I'll just do a little plug before I leave. I've got a
Monster Friend auction coming up tomorrow. That's what I've been finalizing the art for today. So if you like the Monster Friends, definitely check that out. It's one of the last seven. I think Monster Friends before I finish the series forever. And I also have a bunch more exciting stuff coming up this year that I've been working really hard.
hard on for the past month or two while everybody was kind of like a little bit more quiet over the Christmas holiday. So definitely like keep an eye on my Twitter and join my discord if you haven't already because I'm very very excited to announce what's next for me in the next kind of few months I guess.
And yeah, thanks so much again for having me. It was really great to chat to you and I actually speak to you kind of like not face to face, but you know, not over at DM for the first time. Yeah, man, I appreciate that voice to voice is always a different experience for sure. So it was awesome talking with you. I appreciate
you taking your time out of your day once again. And just just a reminder, one more time, we do have the space for outcast, pinned at the top. If you are interested in learning more about him tomorrow, go ahead and drop a reminder there. But thank you everyone for coming to today's making time. And I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. I'll catch you later. Bye bye.