The Early Growth Story Of Bored Ape Yacht Club
From selling only 500 apes during pre-sale to becoming a No.1 NFT project
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is the No.1 project in the entire NFT industry. It has become the most iconic and recognizable brand within the NFT community and the status symbol.
“Many NFT connoisseurs will DM you to spark a conversation, ones I wouldn’t be invited to without my Ape. Owning a Bored Ape is like having an Ivy League degree in the NFT world.”
When did BAYC launch and how was it?
The pre-sale began on April 23, 2021, at 0.08 ETH each. Their big announcement on Twitter only got 22 likes, 3 retweets, and 2 replies. Not surprisingly, 10,000 BAYC did not sell out during the pre-sale. Can you believe this? 😅
To be fair, the team did not reveal the art during the pre-sale, which turned out to be a great move, since people were SURPRISED by the quality of the art when it was revealed on May 1, 2021.
What did the team do during pre-sale to sell out Bored Apes?
Giveaways
Even if The Bored Ape cost only 0.08 ETH, people preferred the free Bored Ape. By the way, the floor price at the time of writing is 73 ETH in this bear market 😅
The team conducted more aggressive marketing campaigns to sell out the collection: do a giveaway every day until the pre-sale ended on April 30th. Yeah, I know… we all missed out on a life-changing opportunity!
Custom Bored Apes for legendary Web3 creators and collectors
The team manually created custom Bored Apes for some OG creators and collectors who inspired the team, and this drew initial attention among big names in the space. Many of them ended up aping into the BAYC, exposing BAYC to their numerous followers, so this strategy worked like a charm.
Official launch on May 1, 2021 - sold out in 12 hours
All 10,000 Bored Apes were revealed on May 1, 2021, and everyone could purchase each Ape for 0.08 ETH.
The team said that only 500 Apes were sold during the pre-sale but the 10,000 collections sold out 12 hours after the official launch. What a turnaround!
What made BAYC sell out?
Great art & website
It’s April 2021. PFP was not a big trend and the most popular PFP project was CryptoPunks with low-resolution pixel art as its theme. People got excited about the high-resolution PFP with intricate details and an interesting story. The website has a unique style that makes you feel like you’re entering the exclusive yacht club.
A warm and welcoming community, starting with the founders.
Again, it’s April 2021, and building a community was not a big thing in the NFT space. The founders’ warm, positive, and welcoming vibes spread into forming an intimate and unique community. They’ve been appreciating the love from the community since day 1 ❤️
Word of mouth from big creators and collectors.
@j1mmyeth bought more than 100 apes and @pranksy bought more than 250 apes during the launch day. @pranksy owned 1,250 apes at one point 🤯 What’s more surprising was that the BAYC founders had never communicated with both @j1mmyeth and @pranksy before their purchase (source: topshotfund substack), so it was a holy grail, organic word-of-mouth growth! The BAYC founders also mentioned that there were other legendary creators and collectors that purchased bored apes.
No bonding curve. 0.08 ETH for all 10,000 Apes
Apparently, a number of previous NFT projects adopted the concept of the “bonding curve”, which simply means that the more tokens that have been distributed, the higher the price 😲.
The BAYC was one of the first projects to fix the price of all Apes into 0.08 ETH. The fixed price definitely appealed to collectors as they didn’t need to worry about the minting price going up. It was quite a revolutionary pricing strategy back then!
What made BAYC become a blue-chip project?
Founders followed the roadmap and delivered promises
Founders never thought of creating a blue chip project first place. They were genuinely surprised whenever the BAYC collection achieved unexpected milestones.
Instead, they just followed the roadmap one by one. They started with creating the BAYC bathroom, the art canvas for BAYC holders to draw together.
Soon after, they released the merch only for holders. I remember having FOMO whenever I saw anyone wearing this merch.
Successful launches of companion NFT series.
The team launched the Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), a companion dog for your ape. It was free for the BAYC holders and the royalties from secondary sales would be donated to the charity. It gave an opportunity for BAYC holders to profit off of their BAKC sales and for non-BAYC holders to ape in for the BAYC ecosystem via BAKC.
A unique community
BAYC had built the first intimate online community where holders changed their Twitter profiles to their NFTs and led the trend “Ape follow Ape” to follow each other. It was arguably the first project that created a huge community on Twitter and made Twitter a go-to platform for NFT projects.
Releasing IP for free
If you’re a BAYC holder, you can commercialize your ape. Releasing IP for free had let BAYC expand beyond Web3. There were Bored & Hungry, a Bored Ape-themed burger joint in Long Beach, CA, and Bored & Breakfast, a Bored Ape-themed online coffee brand, and many more use cases.
Being able to own the NFT license as a holder was the key to expanding BAYC beyond the Web3 industry.
Here are key takeaways from the early success of BAYC:
Use giveaways to gain initial traction. Even BAYC had to do a giveaway to promote the brand in the beginning.
Do things that don’t scale to attract big names in the space. The BAYC team created the custom Bored Apes to thank big collectors and creators and grab their attention.
A high-quality art and a website are the prerequisites for success. BAYC was one of the first NFT projects to release 10,000 PFP with high-resolution, intricate details, and great art quality. Their website had a one-of-a-kind design, too.
Show love to your community to build a community of lovers. Your community is your project’s net worth in Web3. If you genuinely appreciate every single one of your community members, you’ll create an intimate, loving, and diverse community.
Follow the roadmap. It’s easier said than done, but the BAYC team closely followed the roadmap, did the work, and never cared about the floor price.
Find a way to expand your universe beyond 10,000 PFP. The BAYC team created companion NFT series like Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club to invite more collectors into their community.
Release IP for free. Some of your community members will do something creative with their NFTs to expand your brand beyond Web3.
Thanks for reading and have a great day 😊
Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.