NFTs are rapidly evolving - and so is this space. HashLips is driving transformation and bridging gaps through accessibility, education, and empowerment. The name is an alias for his YouTube channel, and for his NFT Art Engine as well as an NFT collection. It is also an art movement. Dig a bit deeper, and you realize that HashLips is an advocate for blockchain technology advancement, too. Most especially, it is a community of like-minded adventurers.

HashLips was born on YouTube in 2021. The channel already has over 2 million total video views. However, HashLips isn’t merely a library of ‘how-to’ videos. It's far more important. HashLips is known by the NFT community for making things accessible that simply weren't before, thus leading to the alias HashLips being spoken by people who have been enabled by the open-source nature of what Daniel does. HashLips now being an Idea and a concept for people to learn from, a community was formed.

Art Engine.

“It was written to facilitate the creation of NFTs and generate artworks,” said Daniel. “I wrote the program to be user-friendly. The audience loves to learn about NFTS, create NFTs, and learn how to code. So, this was a way for anyone to learn and generate their own NFT collections. The HashLips Art Engine is a way to generate a lot of images quickly and easily. It was created and made open-source.

The Art Engine has now enabled the creation of more than 6,000 NFT collections to date – all from within the HashLips community.

One of the most captivating aspects of the NFT space is that it’s still evolving and highly fluid. What’s HashLips’ future? Advocating accessibility and inclusivity.

As Daniel would say:

“Just because you don’t understand how this technology works, doesn’t mean that you should be left behind.”

What I learned about Daniel that isn't in his bio:

He's been following his true north as an artist since childhood.

He took inspiration from his father who was a classically trained jewelry artist.

Daniel was surrounded by materials that were transformed into beauty and he witnessed the creative process as metal morphed into a ring.

While looking for gallery representation, he received a mentor, and opportunity to travel to China.

As a rite of passage, he left home and found himself in a job where he was introduced to java script. And he a big believer in vision boards and the power of positive thinking.

1. All this said, Daniel, can you share your foray into crypto, token and NFTS at this point?

2. Mentorship and studying in China, was this the impetus of teaching on YouTube?

3. Can you describe The HashLips Art Engine?

4. Are you teaching about blockchain technology and walking people through the process of creating an NFT?

5. Why open-source?

6. Roadmaps and utilities, let's talk about the guilt or need for these pieces of the process.

7. New NFT collection

8. Does math appear as art to you?

9. Vision boards and mindset

Hashlips website

Hashlips YouTube

Hashlips on Twitter 

https://youtu.be/PKCND4FqGLc

#HashLips #accessibility #education #empowerment #development #nocode #onboarding #novice #opensource #artengine #SketchyApeBookClub #SABC #Sketchy Lab #nfts #nft #nftart #cryptocurrency #blockchain #metaverse #culturefactor #web3 #smartcontracts #bitcoin #nftartist #nftcollectors #eth #ethereum #youtubers #tiktok #instagram #reels #branding #bitcoin #web3 #smartcontracts #bitcoin #nftartist #nftcollectors #community #decentralizedeconomy

Transcript

Daniel Botha: HashLips YouTuber for NFT Artists plus Roadmaps & Community

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

artworks, people, collection, artist, community, art, space, create, blockchain, day, draw, utility, realize, feel, put, holly, buy, project, roadmaps, daniel

 

Holly Shannon  00:06

Welcome to Culture Factor. I'm your producer and host Holly Shannon. Our new season looks at creators, innovators and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the creator and gig economy is emerging. Talent has gone to work for themselves. The new year starts with the 101, or the beginner guide for NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and all those Metaverse and Web3 topics we keep hearing about. We're all going back to school on Culture Factor to understand this decentralized economy. From creator coins to the tax implications of selling crypto, let's unpack these emerging technologies in really simple terms. Join me and feel free to send in your questions. Would your brand like to sponsor Culture Factor? It is your opportunity to be a part of a podcast that is ranked in the top 2% globally and heard in over 89 countries. Email holly@hollyshannon.com. Subscribe to Culture Factor and share with a friend now. Okay, let's start with our class. Let's get our next guest on.

 

Holly Shannon  01:11

Hello Culture Factor family. Today I have Daniel Botha with me today. He is driving transformation and bridging gaps through accessibility, education, and empowerment. The name HashLips is an alias for his YouTube channel for his NFT art channel, I'm sorry, art engine, and his NFT collection. It is also an art movement, and if you dig a little bit deeper, you will realize that HashLips is an advocate for blockchain technology advancement and a community of like minded adventurers. HashLips was born on YouTube in 2021. The channel already has over 2 million views. And he would say it's not merely a library of how-to videos, that it's far more important than that. And that HashLips is being spoken by people who have been enabled by the open source nature of what Daniel does, and community was formed. The art engine has now enabled the creation of more than 6000 NFT collections to date, all from within the HashLips community. Now what I learned about Daniel that isn't in his bio, is that he's been following his true North as an artist since childhood. And he took information in sorry, inspiration from his father, who was a classically trained jewelry artist. Daniel was surrounded by materials that were transformed into beauty. And he witnessed the creative process as metal morphed into a ring. While looking for gallery representation, he received a mentor and an opportunity to travel to China. And as a rite of passage, he left home and found himself in a job where he was introduced to JavaScript. And he is a big believer in vision boards and the power of positive thinking. So with all that said, welcome Daniel, to Culture Factor.

 

Daniel Botha  03:08

Thanks, Holly. Thank you so much for having me. It is so cool that you're actually did that research, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, I'm very glad to be here on Culture Factor, thank you for having me.

 

Holly Shannon  03:21

You're welcome. And I like to do the research because I want people to know the person behind everything, you know, we can talk endlessly now, about HashLips and NFTs and what you're doing, and we will do that. But I think I think it's important to understand a person, right? So, um, all said, can you share your foray into crypto tokens and NFTs at this point? Because I think now that we have a little background about you, um, maybe you can tell us how you sort of fell into that space?

 

Daniel Botha  04:04

Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Firstly, you know, when you mentioned that I did get inspiration from my dad. Of course, that was the the pinnacle, you know, for me to actually make a video about that because it means so much to me, artworks in general. And I've always searched for a way to express myself and what better way to do it on the blockchain? So I got into blockchain technologies purely for the fact, obviously not for NFTs, no one knew about NFTs back then. But the first kind of glance that I got at the potential of NFTs was CryptoKitties. I'm not sure if you know about the CryptoKitties, they're cute little cats that you know, I was embarrassed to say I had one because back in the day, no one knew no one knew what it was. But you know, I have a few I had four actually. But immediately I regretted my decision back then, because I bought these. And then I realized I just bought a digital cat. And it cost quite a lot back then as well. So, you know, I had mixed feelings back then about NFTs and this realm. But yet I was trading tokens like anyone else, you know, wanting to do good investments, did very bad investments, like everyone else that didn't believe in Bitcoin too early on. But you know, as time moved on, I jumped in and out of crypto every now and then. But I really started diving into it about a year and a half ago, when I realized that NFTs could really be the start of my art career again. So you know, at the time, I was working full time, up until recently only left my job, but back then I was like, Hey, let's, let's do something. And I had this amazing idea. I said, to my girlfriend, I said, Listen, baby I'm gonna put these lips on the blockchain, and we're gonna sell them, right. And people are gonna believe in my artworks, because I don't know. It just, it just came, like was great. So I said to her with this dream in mind, you know, testing it out. I'm a programmer. So I can write the software to generate these things that I've seen all over the place. And that's really what got me into it really is, is the fact that I also have this dream like many others, you know, having a collection on the blockchain, being able to put my stamp on the Virtual Reality forever, really, right? And I guess that's what attracts most people, especially artists in the space to know that when you put it on the blockchain, it's going to live there for a very long time. And we start early. And that's that's kind of how it happened, I guess.

 

Holly Shannon  06:47

That's really cool. But you know, when I look at the lips, like it has a lot of like pop art references to it. Like I feel it's really a departure from the classical work that you were doing. Well, obviously, you enjoy doing both, but which, which style resonates with you more?

 

Daniel Botha  07:08

Yeah, well, I mean, the style at that point, you know, when I realized I'm going to do these lips, it was quite different than my usual art style, because I had to find something that can be generated and overlap each other. And honestly, I have to be honest with myself, I tried to pick the easiest item that I could generate. And never, it was lips, because lips, you know, come in various forms and colors, and you can put glitter and everything on it to make it look quite cool, especially with the backgrounds. Now I did incorporate my previous artworks because I use them as the backgrounds. In fact, you know, when I started off with this, I wanted to do these figures, the these figures that I love drawing, but I felt like people needed a profile picture because I was seeing these things all over the place. And that's why, you know, I didn't go for my usual style, I ended up just making these lips. And that's why I'm saying I have to be honest, because when I look back at them, I would really change them quite quite a lot. But I went ahead, it was my first NFT collection. And believe it or not, I didn't know how to create a collection, a contract. So I was ending up placing each one, one by one, all 10,000 on OpenSea, opening it up sitting in the morning. Yeah, like having a spreadsheet next to me, my girlfriend on the other side of that spreadsheet asking, Okay, have I uploaded this one before baby check? Okay, cool. We have again, next one. Next one. I did that for about 400 of these artworks. And I realized there's a better way of doing this. And that's when I really started doing research into solidity, contract development, and when I found out that there is not so many people knowing this stuff, that's when I got into education, because I really believe that as an artist, you know, it's quite unfair when you have this beautiful platform, everyone gets to upload artworks, but only people who know the tech around it, and I feel that that's unfair. And that's why, you know, that's why I started my journey, educating people on how to do it, everyone has a fair chance of making it in the space.

 

Holly Shannon  09:18

You know, I feel like it's manifested from when you had gone to a gallery, I think in your community, right? And, and the gallery owner came out and offered to mentor you so that you could move through the space of that world, that part of the art world, like getting representation and, and how to present yourself and how to be successful in that arena. So like, you were given that chance by somebody and I feel like now you're paying it forward.

 

Daniel Botha  09:53

Yeah, I mean, you know, back in the day, you know, for people that don't know the story, a gallery artist who actually approached, he was the senior President at the Artists Association at the time. And I, you know, got introduced to him taking on artwork, because I thought, I'm going to bribe him. I thought, I'm going to take this artwork and say, Hey, this is my artwork, let me give it to you. And then you can organize some galleries for me, please. You know, I had this mentality, I was very young. But I got there. And I got immediately told that this looks like gallery cliche art. Needless to say, it was actually a man laying down. It was a weird image, but the individual that was portrayed on the on the portrait, you know, I didn't see it as cliche art. I thought it was beautiful, man, all these guys, they're doing it, why can't I just put a few shapes on a paper and get away with it? Obviously, not understanding at that point, you know, the culture, the time the, the timing, especially, you know, when these artworks were created, really contributes to an artist success. But yeah, he took me in, he said, You know what, you might make these artworks and I can show you a better way of how to present yourself how to be more contemporary. And he was my mentor, so you know, still to this day, if I call him up now, he would say, Hey, how's it going, how's it going with the artworks? And we have lost context, and it's purely, you know, from my side and moving around. So that's unfortunate. But back then he played a really big role in my life, especially in the art scene, because he introduced me to the right people, the right situations, and how to how to act in these situations as an artist.

 

Holly Shannon  11:44

I think like, that must have been part of why your YouTube channel is so so successful, because you understand that there's a process for the person on the other side learning, like the steps they need to take. And um, so I'm assuming that's part of the magic of your YouTube channel. And also, you have, like an open source technology as well. So you're making it accessible to not only teach, but to put it into action, like creating an NFT? Am I right? In my summation of that?

 

Daniel Botha  12:24

100%. Holly, you're halfway there. You can be creating collections soon. That's exactly,

 

Holly Shannon  12:30

You're gonna help me.

 

Daniel Botha  12:32

Maybe we should. Yeah.

 

Holly Shannon  12:33

That would be cool. Actually, we should do it in real time on YouTube. Wouldn't that be cool? Like if you walked me through it, and I was the person doing it? Because, okay, so we're going off on a tangent here, but sorry, I have to say this. So one of the things that, for me, I'm very visual, actually, I was a jewelry designer too. So I'm extremely visual. And if I'm watching and doing, I actually learn better, it's just like my method. So when somebody sends me a link to something to follow it, I almost never open it. Like I cannot, I'm not just going to sit there and like stare at a video, I need to actually be doing it. So maybe, maybe we're gonna like break new ground there.

 

Daniel Botha  13:24

Yeah, we can. I've never taught someone live on a channel before. But yeah, I think we should definitely try that out. Because, you know, visually showing people how to do stuff does add, you know, and it makes it so much easier. The reason why I think the YouTube videos are successful, in my own opinion, is the way I just talk slow, because most of these tutorials that you see, people show you up to a certain point of how to do something, but they skip over the most crucial individual parts they didn't realize that a novice, you know, might not know, small things in the coding realm where, people don't know what a terminal is, they don't know what a command prompt is, that you need to enter. And by explaining to people, holding their hand a little bit better and tighter and say, Come on, let's walk this road together. I think taking the time and putting the extra energy into explaining these things, that might be a reason that contributes to it. Doesn't always work for everyone, because most people plan my videos at 1.5 speed. But that being said, at least you know the value is there. And I hope you know that is the success. Maybe it's just being fumble ends on the videos too. I have no idea. But as long as people are enjoying it, and they get to learn, I'm happy because it is quite fulfilling to know you know, people are watching it because they're learning. They're not just there to kind of watch a video thats not really contributing to anything.

 

Holly Shannon  14:56

You know, interestingly, I, okay, so I have my book Zero to Podcast where I teach people how to do that. And I've always said that I think the magic behind it, and probably the same thing for you, is that if you can share, like if you can share the process from that novice standpoint, that maybe people don't understand certain aspects, then it's easier for them to follow along. So like, for me, like, I didn't know anything about it, about launching a podcast till I did it. And I just took really good notes on it. But so when I published that, it was with almost that novice standpoint, like I didn't have a background in audio engineering. So like, I gave three basic steps for editing, because like, that's what I was using. That's how I figured it out. So I think like the fact that you can go back in time, and still be that person, even though you have a background that's highly technical now, that that's like the coolest thing that you're able to, like, bring it down to the basics.

 

Daniel Botha  16:15

Yeah, bring it down to where it started, I guess. It didn't always, you know, start off like that. For me as well, you know, I was a novice ones as well, with these things. And still on in some respects, I believe that you never stop learning. The moment you stop learning, and you think you know it all, that's when you are mistaken, and really don't know anything. Because I really believe that, you know, when I was working in the corporate environment as well, that was my job. I was a lead developer there. So I had to teach people from the start every single day. When someone onboarded me, you know, into a project to learn the project, first of all, and then when they, new people came along, and they didn't know what was happening, I literally sat with each and every individual taking them through each line of the code. It might sound redundant, but that's what I did to get people up to speed. And you won't believe the amount of value it brought to their lives. Because not only do you have a developer there that's supporting you. But they don't just say, hey, go there's a swimming pool go and swim. They actually put some little fins on your, on your hands, and then they drop you in the water. Anyway, that's maybe not the best analogy. But you know what I'm saying.

 

Holly Shannon  17:33

I do, I do.

 

Daniel Botha  17:34

It helps.

 

Holly Shannon  17:35

Yeah, I, so is that why you came up with like, what was it like, a no code kind of technology so that you can skip that part with people? Because maybe you found it was like, a burden almost or like a barrier to entry that people didn't want to even have to learn that part?

 

Daniel Botha  17:58

You, wow, that's that's a good question. So the, the open source code that I've written, especially for the art engine, and there's been many before that as well. But for the art engine, that's really actually some technical stuff. So there is a lot of code involved. But in order to use it, you don't need to know the code. But I do however, explain each line of code. So for developer coming along, they can code along and they know what I'm talking about. But for someone who's really not used to coding at all, doesn't even know where to start, they can look at the video and say, Okay, this developer at least shows me how to use it. Perfectly fine. Even though it seems technical. I've got, you know, the proudest moment for me was when I was on a space and a lady of the age of 85, you know, as old as my grandma, came on. And she said she managed to use the codebase. So I was really surprised.

 

Holly Shannon  18:57

That rocks. Go grandma. We like her.

 

Daniel Botha  19:01

Yeah. So I was like, wow, you know, that's crazy to find out. And you have, you know, young individuals coming up saying, I've used it, it's so amazing. And everyone has suggestions, which they say, you know, I've used it, but can we do this? And can we do that? And that's, that's really fun. Because then you get to, you know, fulfill their requests, you add some development, and you get it done. But I believe it's like, you know, they always say like, you don't need to understand electricity to use light. And that's the exact same thing that I have. But my analogy is more to the point where I believe people shouldn't be crippled by the fact that they don't understand, you know, how the NFT space works. If someone wants to get into the NFT space, and they really have a beautiful idea, or they really want to advertise something, I want to give them at least the chance to do that. And whether it succeeds or not is up to them  and their project, but at least they'll be able to get to the point where it's on the blockchain. So yeah.

 

Holly Shannon  20:05

That's incredible. Well, I'm, I'm open to being the guinea pig, if you if you want to play around with creating some videos that like walk through the process with somebody that's asking all of the questions. But aside from that, I'm curious for you, because you're, you are such a prolific artist, I saw you doing silk screening and charcoal and, you know, obviously, NFTs and all these things. Is, has math taken on an art form for you?

 

Daniel Botha  20:42

Math? Like,

 

Holly Shannon  20:44

Like, all the code and everything like that. Does, does it appear almost like art to you? Or no? Is that just a random weird question to ask?

 

Daniel Botha  20:53

That is a weird question. Well, I guess it's a valid question. Because in art, first of all, no, I believe there's no no weird questions. I, I believe that, you know, art, obviously being subjective and up to the artist to see things differently. I was never good at math. First of all, right. So I absolutely hated math, and all these technical subjects with all my heart because I felt like, you know, in no way shape or form, am I gonna use trigonometry to work out my daily lives, right? And to this day, I also think, you know, it's, it's quite ridiculous that you have to learn these extensive mathematical things if your purpose in life isn't speaking towards becoming a doctor or something that you need to use these things in. But I didn't know it at the time that math is extremely important when it comes to coding. So, but, but people don't realize is yes, math is a big aspect of coding, but when you use math and coding, you don't use it as you would think. You use it to solution with. So yeah, there's these concepts that you can use to make your life easier when you code. But to get to your question, Holly, yeah, if you go as long as I have, then you start seeing the math and the code and letters as an artistic form. Right? When you understand how things work in the tech space, with computers, and technologies, and components, and so on, you realize everything just comes down to hardware, bits and, bits and pieces, right? So you start thinking differently about these things. But yeah, I haven't thought about that. Maybe I'm, maybe I'll start painting some numbers, I guess.

 

Holly Shannon  22:38

Or maybe there'll be in the backgrounds. Yeah, like maybe the new, because maybe you need a new HashLips collection, and in the back will be all of a code.

 

Daniel Botha  22:46

Or maybe we can create some secret code. You know, I mean, that's fascinating, if you if you think about it, so maybe not math, but code, like I absolutely love the fact that people can generate their own language, you know, or, you know, encode something to the point where it almost becomes like a puzzle. I'm fascinated by things like that. So who knows, maybe for the next collections will create some kind of DaVinci code, you have to decipher something.

 

Holly Shannon  23:16

I think that'd be so cool. And with, when you think about like HashLips, like your pop art, like you speak it, but now it's like, behind the scenes or something. I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm going off tangent here, but like, alright, let's, let's, let's talk about like more business stuff. So can you describe the HashLips art engine? Let's get a little, you know, like, into the nitty gritty

 

Daniel Botha  23:44

Technical. All right. Okay, so basically, this is not that technical. I think for anyone who really is is a coder, they'll realize that it's actually very basic. But you'll find that sometimes the most basic concepts, programs or structures are really valuable in a space where it doesn't exist, right? So basically, what the art engine does, is it layers collection, so I don't know, I'm going to try and portray example. Yeah, for the listeners, they won't know what I'm doing. Let's see. Imagine these like, there's more pages. I have two now, but each page is an attribute. Okay? So I'm actually going to try and and draw this out. Because this is the best way of explaining it. So for listeners: I'm drawing eyes, and for the viewers, they'll see what I'm doing now. Okay, so we've got it. We've got a face, excuse my drawing, trying to betray that I'm an artist, but there's a face and there's eyes. And now what essentially happens with the art engine is these layers are transparent. And so they are called attributes in the NFT space, right? Just simple attributes like eyes like a face. But when you put them together, right, when you overlap them, you can kind of see through the, through the paper, what's happening, a character is forming. And this is the exact concept that the art engine is built off of. Its the fact that you can have numerous different layers, attributes, and put them in a folder, calling them all eyes, calling them all bodies, shapes, whatever, backgrounds. And then this program goes and it constructs an image, each image, uniquely with an ID and meta data, and that's how, that's how it works. It just layers, images on top of each other. And if those images are, well thought of, by an artist, you get a pretty picture at the end.

 

Holly Shannon  25:49

That's very cool. So you had talked about CryptoKitties earlier on. I'm switching gears a little here. Sorry about that. You had talked about CryptoKitties, and you were kind of like, oh, I spent quite a bit of money on that, you know, I probably shouldn't have done that. It was just like digital art. One of the big conversations in NFT space is about roadmaps and utilities. So roadmap, meaning the person who is creating it has a roadmap that they plan on for the buyers of their art, whether it be some sort of, you know, live event in the future, or some sort of, there's something there's a means to an end for them. And then utilities might be like little perks along the way, like maybe they get sent some special little attribute, for example, after they've bought it so that they can morph their kitty into something else. But you had said in one of your YouTubes that, that you feel that imparts like guilt, or a need for an artist to put this, to create a roadmap or to put these utilities in. And as like a purist as an artist, like, that bothers you. So can we dig into that a little bit?

 

Daniel Botha  27:22

Oh, wow. Like, you know, actually, we came from an AMA. We were just talking about the exact same thing. Yeah, Holly you're correct. You know, when we were looking at NFT collections these days, you will find that NFTs come out and there is this underlying expectation of a roadmap, some utility, you know, the artwork can't just be the artwork anymore. No, it has to promise XY and Z as well. And, you know, initially, when I started our collection out, SABC, the Sketchy Ape Book Club collection, our utility was very minimal. It was I think it was writing a book and auctioning, and there was something else, I believe, giveaways, right, which is something doable, it's something manageable. And what I don't like in the space is the way people promise, these extensive roadmaps, which is totally ridiculous and will never be fulfilled. But yet, they are tricking the audience. They're tricking people buying into this NFT thinking that, wow, this team is going to do this. And that's why we always try and keep our utilities, our roadmaps to a minimum. But what this creates, and this is, the problem I have with them, is that once you have a community, following your artworks, and so on, there's this underlying expectation that you need to perform each and every day. You can't rest until these NFTs become, I don't know, one, two, Ether each, which is, to me a burden, you know, as an artist, because you're constantly worried about what the community thinks instead of creating. And, you know, if you create, you should be rather thinking about utility. How can you, you know, bring more value to the artworks that people buying? And I guess it all comes down to one thing is that when you as an artist decide that you're going to put out utility, you You're devaluing your art, you're devaluing yourself as a person, especially creating artworks, because you're innately saying that, you know, my art works as an asset on the Ethereum blockchain, which you've put months and months of works in is simply not enough. You need to you know, outperform yourself every time. You need to promise more than just the artworks for people to be happy to buy into this thing. And that's why you know, with our collections we always have gone the organic route of marketing being a basis for talking about the artwork. But yeah, it's also happened in our community where people are like, no, but we want more utility. And I just keep on saying, but it's the artworks, you know, but we are giving utility. At the end of the day, I am a developer too and an innovator. So I try and, you know, give back to the community as much as possible. But it does become, you know, a little bit much sometimes when you're constantly focusing on that, rather than creating artworks, because as an artist, you know, for me, it's very important to draw. If I don't draw, I feel there's emptiness in my life, if I don't get to put pen on paper, and draw a line, like I just did, Holly, I'm not very happy.

 

Holly Shannon  30:44

You're done for the day. You did your circle for the face and the two eyes.

 

Holly Shannon  30:48

Now we, now we're ready to go. But yeah, I mean, if I can't draw, you know, I, I kind of feel that the creative tension, the buildup of thoughts in your mind becomes overwhelming, to the sense where you're constantly focusing on the wrong stuff. And when you get to draw, when you get to be free as an artist drawing in this space, then it's very much relaxing. But it's not something just, you know, I've experienced. A lot of community owners who I talk to, they experience the same thing. And it's basically because of this misinterpretation of the NFT space that each NFT that comes out has to have a community that is filled with utility and benefits to a collection. Of course, collections differ. So I'm not speaking for everyone. But yeah, that's the only aspect I have on that, is bringing it back to the art man. Oh, man, I can't tell you.

 

Holly Shannon  31:50

You know, alright, so I think that artists have such a hard time with this. You know, if, you know, as an artist, like when I was doing jewelry design, if I had to make a collection, if I got to like be at my bench, and I'm hammering and soldering and doing whatever it is that I'm doing, if I had to do that, but I could only think about the saleability of it, if it was down the road, I would be sending my client, I don't know, a free invitation to New York Fashion Week to see the jewelry on somebody, like it could, it would only be saleable, would only be interesting to them, if there was some other gift coming down the road. I'm not sure that I would be able to create because you can't always guarantee that. And I feel like I feel like that's really hard on the artist. I feel like it, it stops them in their tracks from even thinking about NFTs because they feel like okay, now not only do I need to have a game plan that's over and above, and then if I don't deliver, I'm going to be shamed. You know, and then the the other piece of it is everybody says, Oh, you have to have a community, you have to have a community. You know, that's a full time job building community.

 

Daniel Botha  33:27

It is. I, look, you know, when I entered the space with our collection, I quickly realized that I need to leave my day job because of the amount of time that I need to spend with the community. And even that's not enough. Community is expected to be awake 24/7. Now, is that is that a burden? Not really, because our community is really nice. So I love being you know, and chatting there and being involved and all the stuff we do. But yes, it's absolutely correct. If you are a jewelry, jewelry designer, and you have to think about you know, the ticket that needs to go with your jewelry piece, does that really make your jewelry piece feel special to you? You know, the the piece that you're really working hard on right there right now? And the answer to me is no. As an artist, you know, especially if you want to do proper art in the space, because look, our collection is not just a simplifiedcollection, we got someone to design digital things. Not that that's bad. I want to step on toes here. But I also just want to mention that each of our pieces are hand drawn on pen and paper then scanned in, then taken to Photoshop and then only the layers get separated. So it's a whole process that I do as an artist, you know, it's my own unique little process that I've developed right now. And yeah, I mean, if you look at, if you look at what's happening after you've created them, there's this huge smile on my face every time I look at what I'm drawing. And then there's this realisation of doubt, like thinking, I don't want this to sell, if someone's going to put this expectation on your back of then making it worth, you know, millions of dollars, like you see these big NFT collections go for. Now, there's nothing wrong with a community expecting that because that is totally possible. But it takes time, you know, as an artist growing in a space, it takes time to build up a name, to see that, you know, you add value to a space. But yeah, utilities kind of mess around with that aspect. And I think, you know, looking at the NFT space right now, and seeing more and more spaces where it's going the other route, people are bringing it back to the art world, and focusing on the asset, because I guess people forget that the asset is so important, the fact that you can own something digitally, is truly amazing. So, yeah, I think there needs to be some more emphasis placed on that. Plus the, on the other hand, collections that promise these utilities, to the community, a lot of people get scammed, where these big promises are made. And then you buy into this collection, which truly doesn't even have beautiful art, but because of the utility bought into it, and then these people may have failed. And that's the problem I have with the space because there's someone new coming into the space, you never want to expose them to that. I would rather want to expose someone to say, hey, you can own a digital artwork of mine and have it physically on your wallet. How cool is that? And then people would say, Well, let me see the artwork and you show to them, and they love it and they get one. But that's where, you know, it stops and the community starts, the community supporting the artworks and so on. But yeah, that being said, that was just for me a horrible experience finding out that in order to hype up a community, you'll need to add some utility, which we are now totally against. We trying to bring it back to the origins of the art.

 

Holly Shannon  37:09

I love that. I love that you're recalibrating, that you're looking at did it work, that what you feel doesn't work out there or didn't feel genuine or authentic to you in what the creating art is. So I love that you're revisiting that and dialing it back maybe like with your community, like let's just talk about the art, let's not talk so much about utility and roadmaps, because that's a lot of pressure. Right?

 

Daniel Botha  37:43

Yeah, you have to, you have to do that.

 

Holly Shannon  37:46

Yeah, you're kind of, I feel like you're, you're teaching people in your community how to really look at it in that organic way, in that holistic way. Like, you came to me because you're an artist and you want to create an NFT. Let's do that. Let's not talk about the other stuff. If down the road, you think of some utility, and in your heart, you want to apply it to that, then that's different. But if you create the art with the utility in mind, then it's going to change the art, right?

 

Daniel Botha  38:25

Oh, absolutely. Holly, where have you been? I think you should be in our community right now.

 

Holly Shannon  38:32

I would love that I would love that I'll join.

 

Daniel Botha  38:35

I can give you a Sketchy Ape to form part of our community. If you have an Etherium wallet, I can send you one of my own Sketchy Apes, I would love for you to be a part of it. You know, our community is brilliant in that regard. There's so many people who are passionate about the artworks. And when I mentioned people being upset about utility, it's mostly only a few individuals, right. But a few bad apples, you can't really have spoil the whole thing. So we, we try and pick people out, discuss it with them, find out why they would be upset and then realize that people doesn't even know they don't even know who I am in the space what I've, you know, put all my energy and efforts on it. So, it there's kind of a misconception but it's 100% Correct. As a community leader and an artist, any enthusiasts, whatever it might be, yes, you need to educate communities, you know, especially your own community on, on what is valuable to you as a owner. And what is you know, not really something important at the moment, because when you don't do that, there's some misperceptions going around where people feel that they own you, right? And this is something I need to speak about on Spaces as well. But this this often happens. Someone buys into a collection, and they immediately feel that they own the person who created those collection's time and energy and everything, simply because they own one of the NFTs. Now, that's not the case. If you buy a Picasso, that's not the case, you can't say it's, Because I have one of your artworks, Picasso, please make it more valuable right now in a week. Yeah, it is, it is a skewed view of what a good project should be, it should be there. And if we don't rectify it now, you know, the NFT space won't last that long. And, you know, for our project, we're trying to be here for not just a year or two, or a few months, we want to be a full 10, 12, 100 years if we can. I won't live that long, but if we, if we can, I want to have it live that long. But you cannot make something live that long and be that consistent if you burn out. If you constantly are pressured by a community to add utility ,to constantly change the direction. Because it's going to create confusion, you know, for all the believers in that product that's really not about that stuff. That's actually there for the right reasons. It confuses them because they thinking okay, well, this is happening now or this is happening now. But this and yeah, there's a fine line, you know, so my advice to people if they buy into your NFT collections is a read up on what the utility is, if it is or isn't. And then when you get an NFT, don't try and force utility onto something that's not. If it's an artist's project, then respected as an artist project and respect the artist for his or her work, because they placed a great deal of effort into into getting that all together.

 

Holly Shannon  41:50

That is so well said.

 

Holly Shannon  41:55

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Holly Shannon  42:33

You know, I feel like there's like another piece of this aside from the utility, when you create a community and you're, you need to be accessible all the time. So as an artist, like there's some artists that aren't extroverted and have a YouTube channel, and are on Discord and Telegram, talking to people who have bought their art throughout the day. You know, some artists really work differently than that. They might go out into the wilderness and take photographs all day and go on, you know, hiking trips or something. I don't know. It's just that, that is a whole other job within itself. I know that, like I, I totally understand that. From from my corporate background and working with teams, like when you have to be almost like on like, almost like a salesperson in a way like you're just on all the time. Like how does that affect your work? Like do you feel like you're not getting stuff done? Or do you feel like your energy is depleted sometimes like because it's too much?

 

Daniel Botha  43:46

Yeah. That's this, this? No, this interview session is being actually a great opportunity for me to speak about this stuff. You know, I don't speak about these things. But yeah, it does require you to be on. It does require you to stay up to two, to three, to three in the morning, you know, busy speaking to community members, everything sorting out, you know. Just to give you a perspective, I haven't left this house in a month. Because we get everything delivered here to the house, I don't need to go out really, even though I really want to. But it is, it is what it is at this point. You know, it's, I do get out there, go, have to go and do daily stuff, you know. But the problem is you have to be on the whole time. You have to be available the whole time. And if you're not then people ask why. And the thing is, that's a, like I said, that's really, that's a really weird outlook because like you said, most artists aren't extroverted you know, only the weird ones are.

 

Holly Shannon  44:55

No, I just mean that like, no artist is on like 24/7 on a community Discord channel. Like, you know, what I find fascinating is, I almost want to ask you about your creative process. Because do you find actually that doing all this makes it harder for you to put pen to paper sometimes? Because like, I feel like, yeah, like, I feel like those moments of creativity, those aha moments, they come when you step away from from all the work. So you go for a walk with your girlfriend, or, you know, you play with your cat for a little while or you go for a run or, you know, when you leave the house, I can't believe that you haven't left in like a month. Maybe that's the COVID locked down thing. But yeah, yeah. Like, do you find that you're missing that? That you're missing some of those moments, those aha moments as an artist?

 

Daniel Botha  46:00

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not only aha moments with art, right, I'm missing out on life currently. I have a girlfriend that I, that I live with, you know, and I love it to bits. But I don't get to, you know, go into bed with her, not in that way, just, you know, go to bed together. I don't get to enjoy talks with my families anymore. Because, you know, the, the thing where it actually hit me the hardest, there was the other day when I opened my WhatsApp, and I looked about WhatsApp. And there was a message from my mom, about three days ago, and I haven't even opened it. I know, some people are bad with WhatsApp, I'm not one of those people. If you send me a message, I open it immediately. But that just to show you the extent where the amount of requests from people needing my help has gotten to, and especially with this community, it's been hectic. So that's why I realized and I need to take a step back, I don't need to take a stance and tell the community that, you know, we're taking this back to being artworks, you know, because I would like to see it as a huge success one day. We want to release more artwork collections, we want to build a huge brand together. And you know, we do have marketing individuals, my team that I've got together, they are at least sorting these things out. So there's people 24/7 that can help you out as an artist, which is great. But yeah, the realisation being in the space, in general, is quite a lot. And you know, you can ask any owner of a collection right now they're going to tell you the same thing, is when you do go into the NFT space, be ready to do it full time because there is, there's no time to to just do it part time. Mainly because the crypto, crypto in general never sleeps. And our follower base is right over the world. Right? So UTC times, timezones doesn't even matter anymore for me, because anyone everywhere, who's living in a time zone, I don't even care anymore. If they're awake, they'll call me and I just am awake. So it gets difficult. At the end of the day it gets, gets difficult. But you know, at the end of the day, what pulls a, what pulls me through is the positive feedback. So between all this, between all the craziness of owning a collection and trying to draw, there is this special thing that happens where you open your phone, and there are people thanking you for what you have done. People who have shared stories with me that, I will never forget this, there was an individual who came to our space and said, You know what, from your tutorial, they will be, they were able to create a collection and buy a car for their family, which they've never owned before. But they've raised enough funds to buy a car for the family. And now he gets to drive his kids to school, and you know, things like that, you know, all this stuff. 100% 1,000% worth it. And that's why I'm doing it. You know, when I make videos, I know that this video will help someone one day achieve something that they can. And that is why I stick in the space. You know, it's tough, but it's rewarding.

 

Holly Shannon  49:32

Yeah. Well, you know, I feel like this space has adopted a bit of a hustle culture that's very similar in like FinTech and just tech startups, SAS startups and everything. And I think that there has to be a better way. And maybe, maybe you're the guy to change the formula like maybe, because you're already experiencing it, like before you crash and burn, maybe you need to like address how, how you operate and maybe empower other emerging leaders in your community to start to be the people that check that WhatsApp or, you know, like maybe there's a way to divert a little bit of that traffic and allow for some space for you for rest and creativity and aha moments like, I, I feel like this isn't sustainable. But the culture is kind of pushing you to sustain this level.

 

Daniel Botha  50:45

Yeah, no, definitely I, you know, we have so much help, actually just want to take this time to thank everyone helping me, you know, in both communities, in the HashLips community and the Sketchy community as well. We've got so much help, you know, at the end of the day, but as you know, people would like to speak to the creator, if they can. If they can have this person, they'll reach out, they'll find a way to reach out. I've had some weird late night calls from people just wanting to say sometimes Hi, and, you know, thank you so much, and I appreciate it. I just don't appreciate that much of it happens at four am. But yeah, yeah, you can definitely divert the traffic. But in some sense, you know, I also don't want to be in this community if I'm going to miss half the stuff, and maybe miss out, you know, on important information that needed to get to me as well. And for that fact, you know, kind of blaming myself not to switch off this technique. Yeah, I can, you know, however, if I really want to do, I can take, you know, a month off, go and relax on the beach, and just draw. So, but like I said, I'm in this space, because of the great feedback, because of the people that we help, and I'm gonna give them my best, you know, even if I give it my best for the next 10 years, and I know that, you know, we've made a real change. When it comes to how communities are run, especially with art collections, absolutely, we can be the drivers maybe in the space, because we have the reach to people in the space to change kind of how things are on now, right? Because we've set the precedent for that. And everyone has to try to better themselves, and better each other to have sales, which, you know, shouldn't ever be the driving force. Because once you have sales be the driving force, you're going to promise the world and deliver, you know, nothing. So we need to change that aspect. We need to change the way people do collections, how they handle themselves in the spaces, how they make promises in the spaces. And once they do, they would, there would be a global shift of mindset. But we're already seeing this in the in the space, in the NFT space as people are valuing the art. And you know, you know, going to stop collecting these things that is just, I would say, in my own opinion, insignificant, you know, in the art scene on blockchain. Yeah. Hopefully, fingers crossed.

 

Holly Shannon  53:27

Yeah, no, no, that's great. That's great. And I'm so glad that you have such a great community that really cares about what's happening and that you want to be there. I didn't mean to go off on a tangent on you, just want to make sure that, you know, Daniel isn't all work and no play, you know. Let's, I'd like to circle to your new NFT collection. I think we spoke briefly about sharing that. Is that something that you would like to dig into next?

 

Daniel Botha  54:01

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm very excited for that. You asked me Holly, what do I do? Am I excited when I create? Absolutely, I still am excited, very excited, because, you know, I started drawing the new collection, it is still you know, a part of our ecosystem. We have the Sketchy Lab ecosystem, as that is going to form a part of our, you know, holistic brand. But this new collection, and the reason why I'm so excited for this, our previous collection, the Sketchy Apes, we cannot get a blue tick on OpenSea because they're seeing it as a derivative project. And, you know, there has been some great controversy going there, trying to get the blue tick, because I don't see it as a derivative as all you know, it's new apes. It's okay. As an ape project, and there's a lot of these ape projects on the NFT space. But that being said, it's totally different, the artworks look different, it's all hand drawn. So in its own right, it isn't really a derivative at all. But that being said, I want to give it to the community and show them that we can get a blue tick. I think the community, the artworks, the whole project in itself deserves to be recognized at that level. So I came up with this concept, you know, of traveling back in time with the Sketchy Apes, and creating a collection that kind of resembles them in some way, but in a different form, in a form that's unique, that's going to be an NFT project was also generative. But this time, we're going to eliminate roadmaps, we're going to eliminate rarities, we're going to eliminate all the constructs that's been put in place that kind of drives this NFT space into a certain direction. And the reason why we want to do that is because we're truly speaking about art here, about an individual piece of art that is in value of itself. And we want to bring it back to that. So what better way of doing it than bringing out this cool collection? I cannot give you the name of it yet, because I need to deploy the contract. But it is, it is cool. Like I, I'm going to release some sneak peeks soon, and then we can maybe talk about it again. Maybe, who knows?

 

Holly Shannon  56:24

Yeah, no, I'd love that. You know, maybe we can bring the Culture Factor family on to the Clubhouse platform, give everybody an invitation, and we can discuss that there. And when you have the name for the collection and the links, we can add it to the show notes, because this episode probably will be airing a few weeks post a sitting here right now. So there, there might be the opportunity to still put that in there even though you don't have the name yet. The magic of time, right? Yeah, I would love to do that with you. I think that'd be a lot of fun to jump in a room and do that or on Twitter Spaces, right? I would like to ask you this question. I know you talked earlier about being able to do this 10 years from now, but you also in something I, you know, in a video I watched, have you, you created vision boards throughout your life, a couple of them along the way. And by doing so, you also recognized how it actually, how it actualized the things that you wanted. So do you have a new vision board? Or are you, do you have one that you're still realizing?

 

Daniel Botha  57:52

That is a good question. So yeah, absolutely, Holly. I think when I made the decision to tell people that this is kind of something I do, I didn't know how people were going to react. But people love the fact that, you know, you recognize that mindsets do change the way you do do stuff in the in the world, right? And who you attract and all sorts of things great about it. I don't have a current roadmap. Look at me now see, Holly, I'm calling these things, roadmaps, but they're vision boards.

 

Holly Shannon  58:26

Okay, that's okay. I kind of knew.

 

Daniel Botha  58:29

Okay, cool. So vision board, I don't have a vision board that I'm following now. But you know, in actual reality, there is a vision board because I've created so many, well, in my life created like six or something. Because I've created so many they do stay in your mind. They, they kind of drive the things that you do in life on a daily basis. So when I do get the chance to see them, and I don't get to do that, often, they're in my studio in a different location. So when I go to my studio, I take them out, have a look at them, and realize like, hey, this happened, this happened, this happened, you know, and I don't have a new one. But I think you know, just to reinstate that, you know, something I want to create this year again, just to have one closer to me with new goals, seeing that the space that I'm in now, you know, kind of has different goals to it. And of course, of course I'll do that. I'll always do that. Do you believe in vision boards Holly?

 

Holly Shannon  59:31

It's a great question that you're turning this on me, as the the interviewee becomes the interviewer I love it. I have not done that. And it's really kind of shocking, I think, when I sit back and I think about that. Because I am an artist and I have painted and draw, drawn done drawings and collages and I've taken courses on jewelry and the whole thing. So being building something out, like a poster board with like pictures, and all of that probably would be a really worthwhile effort for me. I don't know why I have not done that. But I think I need to do that, like, it keeps coming back. Like, it's funny, because you're not the first person that has mentioned it. But um, I've never, like physically done it. And I think I need to now, I think I do.

 

Daniel Botha  1:00:31

It's really fun. It's like building a big scrapbook. Not that I like scrapbooking, but it's like, it's like doing artwork to another level, because you get to make a collage, filled with things that you love. And it doesn't always have to be monetary things that you put on that board. It's, sometimes just the moods and, you know, people you want to involve and certain situations you would like to change. And I, you know, when when I first saw the book, I have to be honest, I thought it was a bit of a bogus story, because you know, who gets to write down on the, on a thing and then have it happen? But when you look at how it works, and kind of why I think, I think that it works. Let me put it like that.

 

Holly Shannon  1:01:16

This is the secret book, right?

 

Daniel Botha  1:01:18

This is, this is the Yeah, this is the secret or the power of the subconscious mind, or just listen to what the hell Daniels saying right now.

 

Holly Shannon  1:01:28

Well, honestly, if the secret was good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for Daniel and Holly. So keep going.

 

Daniel Botha  1:01:33

Oh, man, I don't know, like, all I know is that as soon as I have something written down, and focused on and, you know, I get up in the morning, knowing that, you know, this stuff probably already has happened to me before. Your mind puts yourself in a different position, you know, you will, you will engage certain situations differently, you will act differently, you know, with people. And the simplest example I can give is, if you wake up with a smile, you know, and you don't know, just say hi to the first person you see on the street, they're gonna greet you with another smile and say hi back. You know, and that in turn makes you get to work and makes you feel good. And you get to work, and maybe you get this bad email, but you're like, okay, cool. Let me just sort this out. Now, if you wake up in turn negatively, you see the first person and maybe the first person does something to upset you, you're upset, you hit your toe, more upset, then you get that email, then you respond with a rude comment. And then maybe that turns into something bad. So you spiral in the negative way. But, you know, it's, it's all about which way you spiral. And that's why, you know, I always try and identify which direction I'm heading. If I realize it's a bad direction, I quickly try and rectify it, maybe takes me a few minutes. So a half day, and then I reset. And I say, well, we'll start from scratch, and then we do and then it goes great again.

 

Holly Shannon  1:03:07

I think what's so cool is that you recognize that it's happening. I think a lot of people that spiral down lasts a lot longer. The fact that you can almost course correct in such a short period of time is a bit of a gift, you've been doing the work necessary to see it happening in real time.

 

Daniel Botha  1:03:29

Yeah, but please don't tell me that I'm spiraling the wrong way. That's the, so that's the thing, right? When you tell anyone, I'm thinking of someone that I know, but if you tell them that they spiraling in the wrong way, you shouldn't do that, because you're gonna get shouted at. What I'm suggesting is that, yeah, everyone needs to realize that for themselves, and you get to be mad, we all human, I mean, you get to be negative, you get to be upset about stuff. But you also have the right to be happy to be, you know, for, for the smallest things to satisfy you and, and be content with stuff around you as well. And if you realize that, you know, life is so short, and you look at some individuals, look, I live in South Africa. And, you know, on a daily basis, I see people who are not as fortunate as many in South Africa, you know, there's a big poverty gap here. But when you get to see someone having the same smile on their face, who has nothing with them, you realize that life is not about stuff that you own. It's not about you know, how good you look, whatever it is, it is really about how content you are with yourself and your situation. And that means that in any situation that you're in, you know, you can be rich of life, you can be rich of happiness, and you can be rich of you know, blissfulness it's all about that, it's all about just being happy. And at the end of the day, if something isn't making, making you happy, you either need to get rid of it very fast, or you should change it. But that's, that's just how I've lived my life. All my life.

 

Holly Shannon  1:05:13

I love this. It's Daniels philosophy on life. It's fantastic. It's actually a really beautiful way to to end this. So I'm not going to ask you any more questions. I'm just going to thank you for sharing your art and your inspirations and your vision for HashLips and your community and Daniel on Culture Factor. Thank you.

 

Daniel Botha  1:05:39

Holly, thank you so much. It was been it's been a huge honor to be on your show, and I really hope I get to do this again. Thanks.

 

Holly Shannon  1:05:47

We will do this again. Thank you