Will Pemble: Backyard Rollercoasters and Digital NFT Simulator Experiences
Will Pemble is a Web1 Pioneer, a Web2 Leader, and a Web3 Futurist. He built and sold Web.com, one of the first and largest domain name registrars on earth. As a Top 50 Domain Name Millionaire, technology futurist, and serial entrepreneur, Will has been building and growing tech companies since before the days of Web1.
Will’s latest adventure is CoasterPunks.com, an NFT Collection on a mission to build the world's first carbon neutral roller coaster thrill ride, a 200,000 watt solar farm, and an 8 episode educational TV series executive produced by Mythbuster Kari Byron and EXPLR Media.
Will has built five backyard roller coasters and been featured on Good Morning America, Discovery Channel, Netflix, Facebook Watch, and dozens of television shows worldwide.
1. New adventurers in Web 3 seem to think that it is separate and built independently of Web2, being a pioneer of Web1 and a leader in Web2, what do you think?
2. Digging into CoasterPunks, your NFT collection, is a digital and phigital experience on a roller coaster? and is the digital footprint carbon neutral bc it minted on a blockchain that is by design low gas?
3. If phitigal experience, is this at Disney? or any other amusement parks?
Left-field questions:
1. Your solar farm will support how many acres? And can people buy an NFT to have a stake in the generated power and/or the dollars created? OR a stake in the farm it supports? Like a shared agriculture model?
2. What is the TV series you are creating and will it be on the blockchain?
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Holly Shannon, Will Pemble
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 started with our class. Let's get our next guest on.
Holly Shannon 01:11
So hello Culture Factor family. Today I have Will Pemble with me. And he is a web one pioneer, a web two leader, and a web three futurist. He built and sold web.com; One of the first and largest domain name registrars on Earth. As a top 50 domain name millionaire, technology futurist, and serial entrepreneur, Will has been building and growing tech companies since before the days of web one. Will's latest adventure is coasterpunks.com- an NFT collection on a mission to build the world's first carbon neutral roller coaster thrill ride, a 200,000 watt solar farm, and an eight episode educational TV series executive produced by mythbuster Carrie Byron and Explore Media. Will has built five backyard rollercoasters and been featured on Good Morning America, Discovery Channel, Netflix, Facebook Watch, and dozens of television shows worldwide. And today we have him on Culture Factor. Hi Will.
Will Pemble 02:25
I always laugh when I when I hear that. That ridiculously complimentary. Like intro I've also been arrested at Mardi Gras.
Holly Shannon 02:40
Sometimes those are the best stories. So you know, we might have to like dial back to the arrested at Mardi Gras one. You know, I might not let you go on that one. Start with that. Like actually, I take that back. I have a whole list of questions for Will Pemble, but how were you arrested at Mardi Gras?
Will Pemble 02:59
It wasn't really, you don't really get arrested at Mardi Gras, you get sort of like corralled or scooped up. And a fun fact about the New Orleans Police Department, which is one of the most amazing organizations in the world, is other police departments from all over the world go to Mardi Gras to learn crowd control from the New Orleans Police Department because they have a long history of of managing huge crowds of drunken idiots safely and even lovingly. Than, than any other, any other such organization in the world. And so. So I went to school at Louisiana Tech. And so I was there and we went to a lot of Mardi Gras. And every once in a while when you're at Mardi Gras, you're like on one side of the parade route, but you need to get to the other side. It's like, Hey, Brad, he's over there, and you gotta like, cross the street or you gotta cross the parade route. Well, that's not cool, according to the New Orleans Police Department in Mardi Gras. And so what happens is you'll have these little people, you'll have these two rows of people down each side of the street and the parades about to come and you'll have people go jump through the crowd and go, *deedleedlee*, you know, like, scurry across the street and try to get to the other side. And, and most of the time when you try to do that, you're gonna get scooped up and like tossed into a paddy wagon. And like, managed a little bit and so, so I wasn't like fully arrested at Mardi Gras, but I was I was trying to get across the street to to like, connect with Brad. And
Holly Shannon 04:25
You got corralled?
Will Pemble 04:26
Yeah, and I got a little bit corralled. I got picked up and into the paddy wagon and, and,
Holly Shannon 04:33
Again, what was that sound of crossing the street?
Will Pemble 04:40
*deedleedlee*
Holly Shannon 04:40
I was corralled by security once. I, I'll share. So since you're sharing, you know, I think the Culture Factor family would like to know. I wasn't arrested either, but I was scooped up. So um, I jumped on stage at a Lenny Kravitz concert. Cuz like, like amazing and I hopped on there thinking I was going to like dance with him. And his security guard scooped me up so fast. Like, I don't have a sound for it. But it happens so fast that all of a sudden I was backstage, it was like kind of being exited. And then I got super lucky because Lenny himself said it was okay for me to stay there. So actually, I got to be backstage at the Lenny Kravitz concert, because I jumped on the stage.
Will Pemble 05:28
There's a great lesson there, right? You have to ask, you have to get out there. Right? What's, what, I didn't, I didn't make this one up. But I heard somebody say, you know, don't say no to yourself, leave that to somebody else. You know, if you have an idea, you want to get up on stage, you want to do something, you know, be sane about it. But like in business, for example, don't tell yourself, your idea is bad. There are plenty of people who will do that for you. So just like leave that shit to somebody else. And I think the sound by the way of getting scooped up on your way across the stage will be something like, *woop!*
Holly Shannon 06:04
That's quite possible. I always say, Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Yeah. All right. well, let's let's jump into some other stuff. Now that everybody knows about some of our little wild adventures. Let's talk about new adventures in web three. There are some that seem to think that you can build it separately and independently of web two. I had a call, an interview yesterday with Medha Parlikar car from Casper Labs. And she also, like you, being a pioneer in web one and a leader in web two, felt completely differently about that, that like web three cannot operate without web two, it's really an extension of it. And I'm curious if you are in that camp, or if you believe that we can work backwards that we can start web three without, without that.
Will Pemble 07:06
You can, I suppose I suppose you could, you can start a whole new internet, a whole new web three, a whole new everything. The problem, the problem is going to be it's like, you know, it's it's like it's like building, building a railroad that crosses the country. And you've got two separate companies. One starts in San Francisco, one starts in let's call it Philadelphia. And they build a different gauge track. And it kind of like meets up here in the middle and they almost connect and so. So I don't consider web three to be a new language at all, although there are there is a new vernacular, which is, which is an interesting thing in itself. But I think of web three as a new dialect of a language that has been around since 1974, when networking was invented at Xerox PARC in Silicon Valley. So it's just a dialect, right? We've got we've got some new words, we've got some new accents, we've got some new ways of thinking and looking at things but But dude, at the end of the day, it's a shit ton of Linux servers here and there.
Holly Shannon 08:09
Interesting. Okay, I appreciate that answer a lot. And I think I agree with you. I think there's a lot of people that agree with you. Let's dig into CoasterPunks, your NFT collection. So I would I would like to understand, is it a digital and phygital experience on a roller coaster? And for listeners, we all know a digital is and phygital it refers to a physical experience. So is that what it is? And and then I have a follow up question for that. So okay, let's see what you think.
Will Pemble 08:47
Sure, sure. Okay, so, so, um, what's the what's the best way to answer it? Um, where did it come from? Why CoasterPunks? Well, once upon a time in like 2013 You know, a long time ago, almost 10 years ago, my my then 11 year old son, Lyle, it was the end of the summer, we had just gotten back from a bunch of theme park adventures and stuff. My kids are exceedingly spoiled, but also pretty awesome. And Lyle was sad, because school was about to start and he really loves roller coasters. He's knows everything about all of them. And we were just sitting in the backyard just like on the porch swing this this you know, this like, super father son moment and he was just thinking out loud as Lyle always does. He's He's like me, he just talks the whole time. And he was like, you know, it'd be so cool if we had a roller coaster in the backyard. And he was looking at the backyard and I know that like in a kid brain. I know that he's like, looking out there and he's seeing it right because kids live in cartoon land. And and I started seeing it too. And really, really quickly. I was just I just thought to myself, I have to do this. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But I have to do this because I want me and Lyle to be on that swing together for Ever, I want us to have this experience, I want him to be able to talk to his friends, when he's off at some conference or work or has his own kids and all of that I want him to be able to talk about how his crazy dad built a roller coaster in the backyard and, and that, that lit me up just super super instantly. And then and then also on the other hand, this other this other kind of like thought which never goes starts far away. I mentioned my brother when we were getting ready for this whole thing. I also knew that if I did it, I would definitively prove once and for all that I was like so much better of a dad than then Larry is. And so,
Holly Shannon 10:35
That's mean.
Will Pemble 10:36
We're, we are mean to each other with Larry and, Larry and I love each other dearly. And we're we're super close super good friends, and we scrap and compete. And so I was just like and so so to do that, we started putting up videos and to show grandma Lois the progress and also Larry could see them too and, and then one thing led to another, Hackaday saw one of these old, Once upon a time there were these things on the Internet called blogs. And and Hackaday had a blog and Hackaday put a link up to one of my videos and said hey, this guy built a roller coaster in his backyard. And then you know, Guy Kawasaki who was one of the one of the OG influencers in the digital world, he put up into Hey, this guy, built a roller coaster. And then Good Morning America calls me on the phone. He's like, Hey, we're Good Morning America, we heard you had a rollercoaster we'd love to roll a truck and a reporter out there and like do a piece. And so like me and Lyle came out and there's a satellite truck in front of the house, and, and so so there was this, this kind of like kooky viral moment and we started to get some subs on the YouTube channel. And I got very excited about that, because I'm a technical guy. I'm an internet guy. And I wanted to I wanted to like, like, okay, so how do you get subscribers? How do you do that? And I got really, really interested and I love the engineering of it. So that started in like, 20, 2013, something like that, and 2012 a long, long time ago. And so I've got this, this group of people in the world following me, millions and millions of people have seen my roller coaster videos. I've been all over the world to talk to people about it. There's a there's a kid, kid named Gus Machado in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And Gus builds backyard roller coasters on TikTok, and he's got 2 million followers and he builds these awesome back yard roller coasters. You know, Red Bull sponsors, this guy. I mean, He's amazing. He's like, he's 19. He's beautiful. He's funny. He's so cool. And I got I got on a zoom with him a couple of months ago. And I was like, I just reached out. I was like, Dude, I love what you're doing. I'd love to just like talk. If you had some time, that would be so cool. And he gets on the zoom with me. And, and he goes, Oh my God, it's you. I was like, what?
Holly Shannon 12:40
You're his hero.
Will Pemble 12:41
He's like, You taught me how to build roller coasters. I do this because of you. I've been doing this since I was 14. I've been watching your videos since I was 14.
Holly Shannon 12:49
Oh my God.
Will Pemble 12:51
I am in my second year of college studying mechanical engineering because of you.
Holly Shannon 12:58
I got goosebumps, Will.
Will Pemble 13:00
I know right? Oh my god. I was, I was about to cry. I can't describe the beauty of that moment. And, but some kid a kajillion miles away who speaks a language I don't speak, I changed the trajectory of his life for the better. Just because I was doing something like ridiculous just because I wanted to, you know prove to Larry that I'm a better dad. And and so there's this, so without knowing it, I built a community of people who love technology, love engineering, love roller coasters. You know, love making, I'm looking over there, there's a there's a liquid nitrogen container over there, love making ice cream with liquid nitrogen and you know, so like, all the crazy stuff. And so I had this kooky community. And then I got this warehouse. It's not a short explanation of your question, is it um, so I started building, because of COVID I started building Sprinter vans and I got this warehouse because my garage wasn't big enough. And so this is like my workshop right? And I just I don't have a business here per se, I just like I wanted, I wanted a bigger garage. And so now, here I'll take, you want to go on a tour? I, so this, is my, this is my 3000 square foot workshop and warehouse and garage. And it's it's 55 feet wide, 55 feet long and 25 feet high. And I was talking to a friend of mine and I said we were talking about rollercoasters and stuff and and I said you know it'd be cool if we could build like a Space Mountain roller coaster in here. And and when then we talked about because you know, you can control the light and you can manage stuff and it's got a perfectly level flat floor. There's like boatloads of electricity coming in here. You can do anything. And I've got all the tools and so like one, and like most people would be like, Yeah, that would be cool. And then you'd go back to your life. Well, if you're me that Crazy gets, like, jammed into my head.
Holly Shannon 15:04
Embedded.
Will Pemble 15:05
Yeah, it's just like, it just like, pecks at me. So now I can't, when I sit in here, I don't see my workshop or a 3000 foot warehouse, I see this amazing roller coaster and so and so I started a little discord channel and like now there's people on the discord and there's retired Disney Imagineers and, you know, ride people and software people and VR people and everything. And so now, so the roller coaster has taken on a life of its own, I'm like, Okay, we want to do this thing, which is gonna cost a boatload of money, like more money than I could spend. If I were to, if I were to do this more money that I could spend and stay married. So which is important, so and then on another track, I'm like, learning about NFT in crypto and trying to teach my clients about it, because I do technical business strategy, consulting and all that stuff in my as as as a grown up. And, and we were like, well, let's, let's experiment with this. Let's make an NFT project of this so that we can learn about soup to nuts NFT project creation, one, one end to the other, right? I have all the discrete individual skills, right? I know the technology, I know how to do marketing and know how to do all these things. But let's let's weave it all together. Let's make one. And let's make one thats successful. What's the first step? Well, the first step is you go back 10 years and you start your community. Right, that's your first step in building a successful NFT project, in my view, and I'm, again wrong about all sorts of things all the time. So our project will be a physical thing, it'll be, there'll be a themed roller coaster thrill ride, that'll include like a motion simulator rocket to the moon, we're going to build a full on lunar habitat, we've got like space people involved in our Discord, we bet like real you know, so we're like, connected a little bit there. So it'll be a full on lunar habitat, that'll be built Disney style. So you'll be able to, like look out the window, and you'll see over the lunar surface, and you'll see Earth, off the horizon and everything just like just like the way Walt did fourth perspective, because we've got Disney people in the gang. There's, there's, I haven't, I can't show it to you yet, because it's not here. But in California, one of the guys in the team has built like a 112 scale study model of this space. And so it's like all built, there's a video of it just coming soon, you're gonna It's It'll blow you away. So there's a lunar hub. And then what will happen is when you're in the hab, the hab will also have a half a dozen science museum quality exhibits that will teach you about geology, about hydroponics, about 3d printing, about solar power, and all that stuff. And so so there's, like, you know, think science museum education, that's also going to be part of it. And then something will happen in the hab, and you're going to need to, you're going to need to get out of there. And so you'll hop on, you'll hop on the coaster, which will be like a little rocket thing. And then that'll take you around a super exciting adventure. And, you know, hopefully, we survive it all. And then you make it back to Earth. And then when you make it back to Earth, you get off the rocket ship. And then there'll be like a sort of a lounge or like, what I've what I call it comfort room, you know, like in the spelling bee. And, and then, so all of that's going to happen, we're going to do that. On the top of this 3000 square foot warehouse. It's in a 9000 square foot building, which is enough space to put up a 200,000 watt solar farm. I have leased the roof of this building. And so the roof of this building, all 9000 feet are mine now. And I'm going to build a 200,000 watt solar farm. A 200,000 watt solar farm, just just so you know, a solar panel lasts about 20 years, and 200,000 watts of solar panels will last 20 years, which ends up being enough energy to power a single four bedroom home for 400 years. So it's a lot of electricity. Right? And we did that as an answer to the What about the environment, blah, blah, blah, you know, and also like, if you get the opportunity to, like, put that much energy back into the grid, you should take that opportunity, right? I mean, it's like I want to leave the earth better than where I found it. That's my job as a dad. The third part,
Holly Shannon 19:19
Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
Will Pemble 19:20
And then the, and then the third thing, Carrie found out about this. Carrie Byron OG Mythbuster, Carrie Byron, and she found out about this project. And she said, Hey, I've got a I've got a company Explore Media. We develop educational TV content for kids, and we stream it to 2 million kids in in schools all across America. And they're you know, these kids are subscribed to our stuff. We do educational TV, and then we also build a curriculum around it. So that, so that and we would love to build an eight by, eight episode TV series of the build the coaster is going to be called moonshot. We would love to produce eight episodes of television and the curriculum like like you, accredited curriculum for middle school and high school kids. And we'd like to show that to 2 million kids and it's 2 million kids this year. But you know, next year, it'll be 3 million and so on. And so so we can have this, we can have this thing and the goal of my kooky YouTube channel has always been to bring physics family and fun to kids everywhere. That's like my little tagline at the end, you know, thank you for helping me because your family and funny kids everywhere. And, and Carrie is going to get in on that. She's going to be like the boss of making the TV show. So yeah, kind of physical. Then as just like an aside, I seem to have by some weird quirk of fate assembled, a half a dozen kids in high schools and colleges who want to build a VR version of the entire thing. And so that'll end up in some Metaverse or Decentraland. So So yes, as the answer to your question, it's physical.
Holly Shannon 20:53
Wow, you might have accidentally answered some of the questions that I have. So ah, all right. Let's see, where do I go? Let me let me dial into the solar farm for a second. Um, so you said it could support a four bedroom house for 400 years? So can people, this is probably a left field question. Can people buy the CoasterPunks NFT, And they're, they're buying a stake on the blockchain of that energy, and that, that energy could be sold back right to the grid, or maybe sold back to places in need of energy. So that if they buy the NFT, they have the opportunity for the physical experience, but they have a stake in the solar energy going back to the grid. So that's the social good component that they actually are a part of.
Will Pemble 22:06
Yep. Good question. So this, is this this particular thing, it's, it's a really good question with an incredibly complicated answer, right? So the the short answer will, will, all have the power that gets generated by this solar array on the roof of this building is going to go, I don't know if you can see it right back there, you see that box right there, in the very back of the corner of the building, if you're, if you're listening, I'm pointing to a great big 208, three phase circuit breaker box, that's where all the power comes into this space. Our solar array is gonna get wired directly into that. And so the whole roof is going to put power into that, which means none of the electricity that comes from this, that that gets used by this space is going to come from anywhere but solar panels, right, we're going to be incredibly carbon negative. Because, you know, this, this building, like even even once we do the whole thing, it's not going to use a whole bunch of power. All of that gets pushed back into the grid. And then what will happen is Eversource, the the the electric company here in Connecticut, Eversource will start to pay for the electricity that we push into the grid, that money that gets paid for the electricity that gets pushed into the grid will go not to me personally, which I would dearly love. But it'll go to the CoasterPunks project because in addition to, in addition to wanting to like, spend a bunch of money on a bunch of silly and cool and awesome, wonderful stuff and inspire people, we're also like, you know, I'm a financial guy, right? It was once upon a time I was even a stockbroker. Right. And so I know, I know how money works. And, and so we want to manage the funds and the money that come into this space into this into this project so that when we finish this one, when we finish this coaster, and this, season one of our TV series, and this first solar farm, we want to manage the money of this project, like a real business so that next year, we can do some other crazy ass project and some other crazy ass solar farm or other, you know, social good, just like do something good, right? But we've talked about all sorts of things. It's like, hey, let's, let's put these solar panels on the roof of a school in Oakland, right? Let's let's right we can we want to do that. This iteration, because you've got to, you've got to be careful. This iteration of the projects, you know, like round one, season one, series one, whatever you want to call it. We're focused on just carbon negativity. I've got I'm working on another project somewhere, which is called a little more solar. And what we want to do is we want to do exactly what you say, which is where somebody can buy a solar panel for 200 bucks or whatever. And they know that all of that 200 bucks gets paid, gets used to buy a solar panel that isn't stalled in a solar farm. And that's their panel, and every penny that they just put into that project is generating electricity. It's not going to administration, it's not going to marketing. It's not that, you know, 30% of, you know, you know, it's not philanthropy, it's, it's good.
Holly Shannon 25:18
Well, here's the thing, it's okay to make a profit, it's okay to want to make money. It's okay to have a social component that doesn't completely absorb all of the profits. I was just curious. I mean, I think it's really great when there is a social good aspect to something. And I, and I, you know, applaud NFT projects that take the time to put a portion in there or think smart, like you were saying, like, let's power it by solar, so that we're carbon neutral. So I think it's all good. And I don't think there's anything wrong with making a profit, and I think you should.
Will Pemble 25:55
Well I will. And I would argue that every single bit of this project is social good, right? I mean, you know, because of that kid in Brazil, right, we're gonna, we're gonna be, there'll be like YouTube content, all through the thing, just like, every single bit of the build is going to be YouTube and get out there and push people and inspire, of course, the solar farm that's like, easy, and then the TV show that's gonna last forever that, that educational content is gonna last forever. And so everything we're doing is with the mission, which I've had for a decade now, of bringing physics family and fun to kids everywhere. That's the whole point of the thing. And, and I've had very good luck over the years of doing things that I thought were delightful and fun and exciting, and getting paid well to do those things. And so so this is, this is, again, none of this is new for me, this is just like who I am and what I do. And that's a really, really important lesson, I think, for the NFT space, because you get people like, Hey, we're going to do an NFT project. And we're going to solve world hunger. Really? Really? Well, how much world hunger have you solved? Oh, we're gonna do it, it's gonna be awesome. It's like, okay, so the Bill Gates has been working on that, too. And he's put a teeny little dent into it with his billions and billions of dollars and incredible brain. But like, you can't just, or I don't, I'm not sure that there's a there's a real future in saying, we're going to do an NFT project. And we're going to solve a bunch of problems. And we'll tell you what those problems are later, right. And so, so lifting up your NFT project and lifting up your community at the same time, that's a very heavy list.
Holly Shannon 27:30
I don't disagree. I think there's a lot of roadmaps out there for NFTs that will never be realized. I think some of the goals have been too lofty. And it's been difficult for the people who started it to live up to the expectations that their discord channel has begun to have for them. So I, you know, which, which makes me sad, actually, for artists, because I think, you know, if you're an, a true artist, and you want to create something, and you do want to create an NFT, you have to be really careful of the roadmap that you lay out because it can get, it can get out of hand. You know, like if you start to create that community in your discord channel, and they have all of these ideas, and you don't want to say no, excuse me, and you want, you want to realize that and keep everybody happy, you might end up just failing entirely, because you're not really doing what you love. Like for you, you are the artist, the visionary, and the i- the idea man that takes it, who executes on it. You, some artists work differently. And I'm afraid for a lot of projects, because I think the roadmap is too ambitious.
Will Pemble 28:57
100% Um, one of the things that I've as you know, and I've looked at a boatload of them, obviously, and what I noticed the so like, what I when I look at a roadmap, or when I look at anything business, because I'm a I'm like a business guy, right? I'm just like, I don't get to be like a goofball all day, every day by accident. I'm a goofball all day, every day because I very carefully engineered my physical, emotional, spiritual and financial life to facilitate that, right? It's not, you know, I'm not just like, Lucky. I'm incredibly hard working and lucky. So. So when I look at a roadmap, mostly lucky, when I look at a roadmap, I look for one of two things I asked myself, is this roadmap, incredibly vague? We're going to solve world hunger, we're going to do social good, we're gonna feed the children, right, whatever, whatever the things are, right? If and is it vague or the promises or the ideas vague? And that's that, what that tells owes me is if somebody is saying, you know, giving me platitudes or vagaries or, you know, like general fuzzy notions of something out in the future, what that tells me is they don't have a clear vision of what the future is. And on the other side of the spectrum, if the roadmap is incredibly specific, we're gonna build a Metaverse version one it's gonna have this nerves is going to sit on this block of decentralization, or if it's incredibly specific, I get that the Creator has a super specific and clear vision. But it's not tethered to reality. Because reality is a little bit fuzzy, the farther away the farther into the future, or the farther into the past, you get, the fuzzier things become. And so if your roadmap is like super crisp, incredibly specific years and years down the road, I know you're bullshitting. Because nobody knows where this adventure is going to take us. And so so you got to look for and it's, it's an intuitive thing, you got to look for past experience, and you got to look for, for, you know, realistic expectations, somewhere in between that super vague and super specific roadmap, promises, but the roadmap is a promise, it's a solemn promise, in my view.
Holly Shannon 31:22
I see a lot of NFTs as the new stocks, that, you know, we're going to build it and it's going to crash because there's a lot of them that did.
Holly Shannon 31:32
Yep, most of them will. Yeah, yeah, it's in the high 90s. Like, like Vaynerchuk says, you know, it's like 95%. And, and the reason most of them are gonna crash is because they skirt the edges of securities law. And if you think for a second that the Department of Justice in the SEC aren't going to come crashing down on this fucking party, you've got a whole nother thing coming. Because we are a nation of laws. And, and that that's one of the reasons. And then the other reason is, is most people in this space are very excited. And they get into it. And just like, you know, God loves them, they don't know what the hell they're doing. They, they don't have the artistic qualifications to do the art, or they don't have the business qualifications to manage it as a business, or they don't have the technical qualifications to to like, deploy this, this new crazy technology. And, and you need all of those things. Oh, and you also have to go back a decade in time and build yourself a real community of real people who love you and respect you and follow you for things you've already done. You have to earn your NFT project way before you pull the trigger.
Holly Shannon 32:43
You know, it's funny, I spoke with Vladislav Ginsburg with BlockParty. And I feel that we were kind of talking about community building. And I think that a lot of web three adventures would do well to look, not even just at web two community building, but web one, like, go sit down with your grandparents, and ask them how they built a community. And sometimes it's, it's hyperlocal, you know, it might be like, your, your church, or you know, the YMCA, or, you know, something in your community, you know, maybe it's, I don't know, those are a couple examples. But, you know, go back and see how they're doing it and see how big those communities are even on a local level, and how, how they built that and take those skills into web three with you, because you can build community, but if you think it's all going to live on Twitter, like that's gonna, that could come crashing tomorrow, like, you know, it was, you know, what, what if, you know, Elon Musk does go through with that purchase? It could change how algorithms work, for example, and maybe you're gonna have trouble with that community that you built on there that following. Or there's a power outage, like, you know, Facebook, and you, you know, you lose all of that time with your community. And maybe money that you spent that you were launching something on that particular day. You can't rely solely on it. Like I think it's important to go back and have a grassroots mentality about community building, and it sounds like that's what you did. And that's why you've been able to carry those people into your web three adventure.
Will Pemble 34:46
Yeah. And what So, one of the things that the like the pandemic has taught me, and I've always been, I'm kind of a people person, I guess I am a people person. I you know, I like people. I like the potential I You know, I love all of that. I love humanity. But I also really love being alone. Right? I like being by myself, it's, it's comfortable for me. And part of that is just the, the nature of my existence. And I'm sure you feel it too, right. Your job is to, you know, get on stage and light up a room and, you know, be Holly Shannon and Holly Shannon is this, this, You know, it's, in a way it's you, but it's also a sort of an amplified you. And you can't be right, So like, I don't know about you, but like, at the end of the, while, I probably do know about you, like if I'm on stage or doing a thing all day, at the end of the day, I'm like, Yeah, boom, and everybody you know, it's like, it gets so much energy from the people and is fantastic and exciting. And I get back to the hotel room, boom, I am down, right? I'm asleep. Because it's very, very tiring, to be Will Pemble. And I'm sure it's also very tiring to be Holly Shannon. So like, one of my favorite things to do is go away and be alone. The pandemic has, has helped me to put a lot of that in perspective, the the value of human connection, the value of a conference, right, the value of just being able to being able to, like, gather with others is it's a it's an it's a really important to nearly sacred thing, a really important part of being human. And and that, to me is really important. That's a That's a super important aspect of CoasterPunks that we want it to be super physical. Everybody who buys we're you know, we're this this collection is 10,000 pieces. Everybody who buys a coaster punks, NFT is going to be invited to probably a month long launch event. And they're going to get to ride the coaster. And and as a guy who's built, you know, five backyard rollercoasters, I have received 1000s of requests from people could I come and ride it, can I come and ride it, I will travel I you know, there's people have driven across the country. And I've never been in the position to facilitate, you know, like, 1000s of people come into the house to ride the thing. And, you know, but but everybody who gets the NFT, of course, you're gonna get a t shirt, right, we're gonna ship you know, one of three t shirt, you know, everybody's gonna get swag T shirts and hoodies and that kind of thing. But we're also going to invite you to because we want you to come and ride it, and then there'll be some more rare things. And so you'll be able to, you know, a small number of people will be able to come and like, help us build it come to a build day. And like getting, you know, put your hands on this thing, own some of it, you know, we'll we'll do like, you know, there'll be a bunch of floor tiles in the Hab. And so we'll be like, will allow you to dedicate a floor tile and the Hab will put you in touch. You know, you'll the last episode of the TV series is going to be shot at the launch event. And so we'll have a couple of people. One of the one of the utilities or perks will be you get to you get a cameo in the last episode of the TV series. And we're going to do tours at Disneyland and tickets to different theme parks and stuff like that. So there's a whole bunch of crazy fun that we're going to give away. Oh my favorites, a flying lesson. Because that's because being an astronaut, the first step is learning how to fly airplanes. And a skydiving lesson just because that's crazy, right? And so like so there's all sorts of kooky fun stuff. But it's all very physical, very real world and very connected to one another. And that is crazy important. Because like maybe there are people in the world and I'm sure there are who just like love to just be on Discord all day every day. I would prefer if I'm if I'm wanting things for other people, I want people to get out and see the world and see one another and learn from that. And so everything we do is again, physics, family, and fun. And this is an this is that's the family component. This is what's CoasterPunks is already a family. And we're just we're just weaving some more crazy into it and bringing more people and bringing NFT people into this crazy roller coaster world of ours.
Holly Shannon 38:57
I love it. You know, it's the, the the tech and the web three. But you know, again, the physical part of it. Because I mean, if you have a love of roller coasters and science and adventure, you want to physically do it right. It would be really interesting, because you said it's going to be like people could come and be a part of the build. I wonder if the, What was her name? Carrie, Byron, Carrie Byron, I wonder if they would bring over the guy from Brazil. That,
Will Pemble 39:32
Oh, Gus is coming.
Holly Shannon 39:34
It's gonna say like, you have an episode where you guys kind of revisit that Zoom conversation, and then he's part of the build. That would be the coolest thing to see.
Will Pemble 39:44
Oh, yeah. Well, I'm so glad because like the other day Gus and I shot a thing he's interviewing. He interviewed me on his TikTok right. And he's, you know, just like, his TikTok videos just, I, I'm amazed at that guy. He can he can like take what for me would be like a 15 minutes like, Hey, we're going to do This so we're gonna bend the pipe and while there's like, he does that whole thing in 30 seconds and I'm pretty sure he does it better than me. And, but Gus speaks mainly Portuguese Liz is Portuguese Gus speaks mainly in Portuguese. He's Brazilian. Liz is Portuguese. And so,
Holly Shannon 40:13
That is your wife, right?
Will Pemble 40:14
Yes.
Holly Shannon 40:15
Okay.
Will Pemble 40:15
Yeah. So Liz has already spoken to Gus' mom. Right? And they've done like the Portuguese mom thing. And it's like, oh, yeah, he'll stay with us and. And Gus is, Gus is the age of my son Lyle and, and like you, when we talked on the Zoom Lyle happened to be in the house, Lyle's off at school, but Lyle happened to be in the house and Lyle comes and gets in front of the camera and goes like, oh my god, Lyle, you got so big.
Holly Shannon 40:40
Like, wow.
Will Pemble 40:42
We're bringing, of course we're gonna bring Gus here. He's, he's magical, right? He's a wonderful, wonderful guy.
Holly Shannon 40:48
I love that, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to go watch some of these videos, what we'll have to do with any, we're going to put all the in the show notes like your YouTube and, and if there was, you know, some sort of YouTube together with the two of you, I'm happy to link that in the show notes as well. So, just so everybody, and there'll be links to the NFT so I just want to put that out there for everybody. I had a question though. Because you're so goo technically, the TV series that's been created, and/or maybe even just going back to CoasterPunks NFT, what blockchain will that be on? Is it one that you're creating yourself to maintain that carbon neutrality? Or are you expecting there's going to be some gas fees and you hope like maybe the solar power will back pay for for some of that? Or how does that work?
Will Pemble 41:44
Well, the original, the original purpose of the solar thing and um, you know, I'm not this like ball of light, super happy. You know, I'm, I'm a I'm an optimistic cynic. Right. And so, so when we first started talking about the solar farm, we sort of referred to that internally as the fuck you haters component of it, so it's like, Fine, you want to hate on NFTs because they use a lot of energy? Fuck you haters, we will generate 200,000 watts of electricity all day, every day. So fuck you haters, right. And that's where it started.
Holly Shannon 42:21
So I asked the right question, because part of my process, I'm glad, like for my left field questions.
Will Pemble 42:27
So I'm doing, I, you could, you could argue maybe that I'm doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Holly Shannon 42:33
However you have to do it. Right.
Will Pemble 42:35
So we did a whole bunch of soul searching about, about, particularly specifically Ethereum and which is where this is going to live, right? It's going to live on Etherium. Because Etherium is Beverly Hills. And if you want to sell an expensive product, you better build your store in Beverly Hills. And so but we went back and forth, it's like polygon X branch and all of this sort of stuff. And so there's like, as you know, it's an insanely complicated thing. If you're in gas fees are off the charts, I don't know the specific number of of Etherium. But I know that the Bitcoin Blockchain is reputed to use more electricity than Finland. And that's not cool. So, but, Etherium 2.0 is going to, supposed to be better. There's already another implementation of the, of an Etherium smart contract called the ERC 721 A, which allows- ERC 721 is kind of like the normal standard. That's how most NFTs get bought and sold. And it's a one at a time thing. 721 A allows you to batch process minting and so if you're gonna, say you mint the first one and it costs 10 units of gas, when you meant the second one, it costs you 12, the third one 14, the fourth one 16, the fifth one 18, the sixth one 20 or whatever. And so if you mint five or six NFTs at a time using a 721 A, basically you, you cut your gas fees by about 80%. So that's still not good enough. But what I know about technology is that it's going to get better, it's going to get more efficient, I drive, you know, like a Model T Ford gets about a mile to a gallon of gasoline. My Tesla gets about 100 miles to an equivalent amount of energy. So I know, and I know computer technology increases in orders of magnitude not not at the slow rate that cars get better and and faster. So we did a whole, again, we thought about Polygon a whole lot. But it's just the user interface the the the the mental barrier to entry the shit you have to go through so to speak,
Holly Shannon 44:44
There's a lot of friction.
Will Pemble 44:45
From a bridge, and got to do this, and that, and I gotta watch a tutorial, and it's like, No, you just you lose 80% of your people.
Holly Shannon 44:52
I'm so glad you said this because I'm launching my NFT soon and this was part of the conversation. So thank you.
Will Pemble 44:57
I like I'm a I'm a fan of 721 A. There's one that came after that, and I don't remember the name of it, I don't want I'm not gonna say it because I don't want to say it wrong. But there's another there's another iteration of the 721 smart contract. That should be even better, but, but 721 a will, will will allow us to batch and so we could set up a rule that was something like, you know, like, every five, every five NFTs we sell, then go and mint those because the gas fees will drop significantly or every 60 minutes, right. And so if I buy one, and nobody else does, then so so like, you figure out rules, and this is just like very, very simple, basic software stuff, which, by the way, smart contracts are very similar based software. So. So that's kind of where we came down on the thing. It's like we have to stay on Eth even though you know, even with Eth's history, right? It's like, okay, so if like, you know, if you've got if you've got an arsonist in the family, and they've just decided to stop being an arsonist. Are you still okay with them? Alright, and so it's like, Eth has some making up to do, right, the Ethereum blockchain, and I get all of that it's, it gets really complicated really fast. The short answer Etherium 721 A block processing, not the most efficient and cheapest gas fees in the world. But way, way, way, way, way better than what you would have used on Etherium, even six months ago.
Holly Shannon 46:26
Okay, interesting. See, I'm learning with my listeners, because I'm going to be launching mine soon. And so thank you for that advice. Appreciate it. I think a lot of people, as they start to think about how they're going to roll out their projects, it's always nice to talk to somebody who has a lot of experience in it. So,
Will Pemble 46:44
Well, it was well, I mean, when we started web.com, in the late 90s, in what my kids call the 1900s, those so and so's, when we started web.com, the phone would ring, we'd pick up the phone, which was actually wired to a wall somewhere if you can imagine such a thing. And we say, Hey, thanks for calling web.com. This is, Will how can I help you? And the person on the other phone would say, I was told by my business manager, I need to get this domain name thing. What is a domain name? And so like, and then every now and then the next question is, Well, isn't that kind of a scam? A digital address? does that even mean anything? Are you just bullshitting me? I've had the entire web three conversation 20 years ago, and I built a multi 100 million dollar business off of the answers to those questions. And so all of the problems that we see, the user interface problems, the adoption problems, the weird, quirky effed up technical user experience problems, all of those things we've solved a decade ago. And so like so like, I am unintimidated by web three, because it's, because it's web one. Sorry. It's just, the only, and the only reason people who were born in 2001, people my daughter's age, the only reason that they're intimidated by it, is it just like didn't see it, the last time it happened. And so So it's this, it's this, but But that being said, there's incredible opportunities and coolness around web three that didn't exist back then. And so like, I'm really excited, because the the obstacles don't seem as tall to me. And, and the opportunities seem even taller.
Holly Shannon 48:33
That's amazing. I, you know, I feel like I kind of want to end on that note. I do have one other question the, the physical experience is going to be behind you there. And then you're going to replicate that and it'll be maybe at other amusement parks like Disney and so forth. Or you're just this is the pilot project. And you're worried about it after that?
Will Pemble 48:57
Well, we've, we've already built into the built into the requirement here that none of the none of the thing that we're going to build is actually going to touch the walls. And it's all going to be take a part-able. So we'll be able to be we'll be able to take it apart and put it on two or three, two, or three semis and drive it to other places. And so if we wanted to go and put this in the parking lot of a science museum here, a science museum there, and so it'll be it'll be a traveling thing. And it'll be designed to be, you know, taken apart, broken down, shipped, and reassembled one once upon a time, I was weirdly, I had a client and ended up being the chief operating officer of like, the biggest event company in California for four years. And so we would run Oracle OpenWorld and great big rock and roll concerts and all that sort of stuff. And so like, managing again, are you talking out of your ass or do you know what you're doing? That's, that's a really, really important question. So when I say we're going to have a launch event, and it's going to be a month long, and this is 3000 feet, we're going to have another 1000 feet of tenting out there where there's going to be the lounge and the party and all that stuff. If somebody says like, Do you know how Gotta do all of that stuff. It's like, Yeah, I actually have done all of that stuff for four years. And I know people who know how to do it. And so when I say there's going to be event, none of that, right, I've got it figured all the way down to the battery powered exit signs that need to go in the tenting, which the fire marshal will absolutely inspect, before they let anybody into the building. I you know, just like none of it. None of it is new to us. The experience is going to be new that it's it but it's but it's just a scaling of this wonderful adventure, this wonderful, this mutual gift that the world and I seem to have given to each other. And I just I couldn't be as you can plainly see, I couldn't be more excited about this, this crazy opportunity, all of which came true because of web three.
Holly Shannon 50:47
Yeah, it's amazing. I love this where in Connecticut will this be? This first one?
50:53
This will be in a little town called Brookfield, Connecticut, which is, which is just like it's like the the upper left side of Connecticut.
Holly Shannon 51:02
Yeah, it's close to New Milford and little County.
Will Pemble 51:04
Yeah, close to new Millfield close to New Milford, close to Danbury, Connecticut. That's kind of like the closest sort of real city. If there's such a thing as a real city in Connecticut.
Holly Shannon 51:13
Yeah. Well, we were kind of neighbors, because I just left Connecticut about a year and a half ago. So I know your area. And I will be driving through it soon.
Will Pemble 51:24
So we got by any time we'd love to see you.
Holly Shannon 51:26
Yes. Well, I'm looking forward to being a part of the experience when I'm visiting my family in Connecticut. So it's really amazing. And maybe I'll have my brother drive down in his model a so you can meet him. We have I think we have some six degrees of separation going on without Kevin. What's his name? Kevin Bacon. Thank you. We have our six degrees of Kevin Bacon without him. So we'll have to, we'll have to make that happen. I can't thank you enough, Will. You know, we, I think we tried to do this interview a while ago, and I wasn't sure we'd get it in in time. But I'm really glad that we had this and I think I might meet you in person at NFT NYC. You're right, I am I'm going to be on a panel with four other guys. And we'll be talking about NFTs and brands and so forth. So I'm looking forward to that.
Will Pemble 52:18
You gotta let me know what it is. I want to I want to I want to sit there I want to get in on that
Holly Shannon 52:23
I need all the support for sure. I'm speaking on their pardon, what will you be speaking about,
Will Pemble 52:29
I just got the title of my talk, which I just filled out the form as a rant, Liz wasn't around to bitch at and I had an idea in my head. And so I just like filled out this form. And so So the title of the talk is selling NFTs: the perfect storm of miscommunication and mistrust. And, and, and the general notion of the talk is how somehow or another the industry has figured out as many like borderline offensive or straight up toxic names for as many of the aspects of the process as we can think of right? Blockchain is a word that literally turns off parts of cognitive centers of your brain. When you say the word block, that's what your brain does, it listens to you. So when you hear the word blockchain, you have to go around that to get to understanding what the hell we're talking about. And then like, you know, Discord, if you look up discord in the dictionary, it means argument and not in a good way. Not in a like, you know, Professor Bala Moore's logic class way.
Holly Shannon 53:26
It's it's right. It's not healthy disagreement.
Will Pemble 53:29
No, it's not healthy disagreement, you know, mining, I mean, come on, what do we have to call it mining? Why don't we just call it rape, and there's this like, all of the words, and they're also designed to, you know, fungible, it's an archaic fucking word. I mean, so. So anyway, that was my rant. And that's going to be like my talk. And it'll end it'll end up with like, Okay, but how do we solve this? Right? How do we get past that because we, as the leaders of this industry, have a duty to the future, we're, you know, we're leaving footprints on the moon right now. And that's going to last forever, we have an important duty of care, to people in the future of this business, and everything we do matters and everything we do is impactful. And none of it is trivial. So like when we embrace a fucking typo, like hodl who doesn't that piss off? Right? It's like, you know, walk into any boardroom of any company, and say, hodl, and they'll be like, stop being an idiot, right? And it's going to take a long time to wear like, that shows up in Webster. So anyway, that was my rant. And I just filled it out because I was just clicks and I was like, Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest and then two days later, they were like, Hey, bro, cool.
Holly Shannon 54:41
All right. Well, you have to share when when you're speaking because I would love to show that as well. I would love to I'd love to,
Will Pemble 54:47
I promise. I'm like reeling it in. It's gonna turn into it'll be the I'm all about like specific actionable tactical, here's what to do about that. So I'm I'm not I don't like to describe what awesome looks like I like to describe how to get there. I don't want to really tell you about the beach. I want to give you directions on how to drive there yourself.
Holly Shannon 55:08
Nice. I love it. I love it. Well, hopefully you'll have some good solutions for some of the the bad words out there. Right. I thank you so much. Well, really, this was wonderful. Thank you for coming on culture factor. This is amazing.
Will Pemble 55:22
It's a it's a really, really, it's a pleasure to be here, Holly. I can't wait to meet you in person. And if there's anything I can do to be helpful to you or your family, your culture factor family, please let me know.
Holly Shannon 55:32
Excellent. Thank you.