Ep 67: The NFT Project That's Taking the World by Storm: An Interview with Dogami’s CBO, Kristofer Penseyres

In a world of blockchain and NFTs, Kristofer Penseyres explores the new world of Dogami and the exciting possibilities for the future of the internet.

"I think we spent two months just talking about what was the right direction, what was the wrong direction, what it was that we needed. We wanted everybody to be able to have some kind of an emotional connection with Dogami, because I think what makes a likable brand is relatability, but it's also the depth of the universe that you're building, the environment, the characters."

Kristofer Penseyres is the chief branding officer of Dogami and one of the six Doga Fathers. He has a background in the luxury industry and the film industry, and is passionate about the potential of NFTs to change the way we interact with the digital world.

Kris Penseyres had just finished a branding project for the Real Madrid Football Club and was introduced to the blockchain world by a VC in San Francisco. His desire to learn more and take a chance led him to a meeting with Adrian, Bilal and Max, who were launching an NFT project called Dogami. After a few conversations, Kris decided to join the team as their Chief Branding Officer, leading them on a journey to build a brand that could have a lasting impact in the blockchain world. They worked together to create a unique universe with characters and a story behind the Dogs and their mission. Through hard work and dedication, the Dogami crew has cultivated a passionate community and created a platform for long-term success.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. The development of the Dogami universe, including the lore and backstory of the Dogami’s.

2. The long-term vision for the Dogami project, including plans for future products and expansions.

3. The behind-the-scenes work that goes into building and maintaining the Dogami community.

Connect with Kris:

Dogami: https://dogami.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dogami

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/dogami

Free Download:

The Words of Web3 - A comprehensive glossary of terms used in the space https://mailchi.mp/9d043022b5a0/words-of-web3

Connect with me:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbrooksheehan

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBrookSheehan

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drbrooksheehan

Transcript

[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Hey, Dr. Brook here with another epic adventure through the wild, wild west of Web3. Today I am joined by my copilot, Kris Payne, who is the chief branding officer of Dogami. For those of you who know me, you know that I'm super cheesy right now because this is my favorite NFT project ever. So it is an absolute honor to have Kris on the show. I am so excited, excited you're here. Thank you so much for being here.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And it's cool to see you again after having met in La.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 I know it feels so good. It feels really amazing. So my listeners know and my audience knows, but I want to know what your intro story is into the Web3 world. How did you personally get into the rabbit hole of the whole blockchain world?
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Sure makes sense, actually. It wasn't that long ago, to be honest, so the transition was rather fast. But I was working on a branding project for the Real Madrid Football Club a few years back and I met a very nice guy there that was on the board of VC in San Francisco. And he basically introduced me to the guys from the Venture Cap, and he said, yeah, you could help these guys with a rebranding as well. It would be interesting. They're putting together a new portfolio of investments. I'm like. Okay. Sure. So I did the first call with them and they were talking about their first investments in C Drowned, and they were talking to me about having invested in Dapper Labs and other things like that. I'm trying to figure out everything that they had done right? And I was like, okay, it's very hard to do a rebranding or branding on a subject that you don't understand. So I'm like, okay, give me a week and we'll see what we can do together. And I kind of did a deep dive. I don't know how many videos on YouTube. I made my education on the different blockchains, basically on all the different Web3 tools. And then I landed on NFTs, and I was like, okay, this is mind blowing for anybody that's a creator or that's been a creator. There's actually so much that you can do with NFTs in terms of its usage. And I had done a bit of my path in the luxury industry and a bit of my path in the film industry. Actually, I spent the majority of my time in the film industry, and one of the first things that I thought NFTs would be a great use case scenario for was in the luxury industry for everything that's linked to being able to assign proper proprietary, proprietary rights on what you own and what you don't own. Because one of the biggest pain points in the luxury industry is the gray market. I'm like, this is actually amazing to be able to have this digital waiver that tells you who's the owner of what. And even for people that are, for example, watch collectors, to be able to know who exactly has owned that timepiece and knowing exactly what the history of that timepiece was. So first of all I was like, wow, this is going to change the luxury industry. And then I was like, oh, but for films, if you would be able to stream films and distribute them through the blockchain, you would know exactly where your film is being distributed. Because in the film industry, there's this huge kind of lack of visibility on where your content is actually being distributed. And for once, the creators or the producers could have full transparency on that. So it started like steaming in my head and I was like, there's so many things that we can do, this technology is amazing. And so I did the rebranding for them and I think I spent the next three, four months kind of sharing as much as I could about Web3. I wanted everybody to know. And that kind of sparked the attention of a reclosed friend of mine which told me, listen, you have to meet these three guys, they're about to launch an NFT project. And I met Adrian, Bell and Max through that. So that was kind of the introduction. It was done very quickly, but I became very passionate about it right away. I don't have a lot of in depth knowledge in terms of how it works technically, but I have the knowledge of the advantages that it can give. And that's the side that really got me excited to want to explore and to be able to create new things in that universe was super exciting.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That's amazing. And you mentioned the three guys that you met, that you got introduced to that were building out this NFT project. That NFT project is the project that we're going to be talking about today, which is DOGAMI. And you are now one of the six Doga fathers. That's what you guys go by, right? There are six of you total the Doga fathers. How did the creation you came on to the project Dog yami, really early on. Tell us a little bit about the background story of Dogami and how that all got started.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 I actually started with two of my business partners and the idea came from, well, Adrian, which is one of our business partners, and he's the chief operations officer at DOGAMI. He had spent about twelve years in the pet industry and he built a platform which is called Whammy's, which is kind of the Google for cats and dogs actually all pets. And it was one of the largest it is still actually, so I say it was because he left, but it's the largest pet media website in the world with 15 million unique visits a month. It's got the biggest community and he saw as well the opportunity to be able to use new tools to build new communities around the pet industry. And that was kind of his ideas. How do I transition from web two to Web3? Because he had just sold his company to Nestle. So it was a very successful, successful mission that he had accomplished, and he was an angel investor in a few companies, and that got him to meet Bilal. And Bilal was kind of talking to him about Web3 and giving him an introduction to Web3. And one day, Adrian was having lunch or dinner, and he was thinking about just about names of what the next company could be without even having a concept. And he's thinking dog origami because he likes Japan a lot. He's like, maybe we can do something with dog and origami the art of folding paper, having plenty of different end results and solutions. And he saw himself, okay. Togami is a great name now.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 I love it.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 It was kind of born out of that. And then he kind of had his first discussions with Bilal. And Bilal was like, if we go into this, I've got a lot of knowledge. Bilal had made a reputation for himself for being the first person in Europe to do a real estate transaction using with Tezos's, blockchain, so tokenization of physical assets to do transactions. So he had built quite a reputation for himself, and he was like, okay, let's do this together. I can guide you through the motions. I can give you the know how in this business for you to be able to develop your project. And they're like, okay, we need somebody that can hold the reins of this project. And Bilal was at university with Max, which is the third partner, Maximum. And he contacted Max, and he's like, so, Max, do you like your job? And Max like, well, listen, it's okay. What if I told you that you could be the CEO of a Web3 NFT gaming company? And Max is like, well, that does sound better than doing business advisory at Boston Consultancy Group. So give me a few minutes. And I think 24 hours later, he wrote back to Belal, and he's like, listen, you know what? If you don't take risks in your life, you don't get to anything. And he's like, I'm in. And at this point, Adrian was looking for someone to kind of jump on the wagon to build the brand. The guy it's positioning and its image. And he actually got in contact with a good friend of mine, Kelly, who lives here in Geneva in Switzerland. And she was like, listen, I have no knowledge on web of Web3. I think the project is awesome, but maybe I can introduce you to someone that just can't stop talking about Web3. And so she calls me, and she's like, I don't know. I have a friend. He's super smart. He's called Adrian. He saw this company to Nestle, he's doing NFTs for dogs. And I'm like, okay, I don't get it. What is he doing with NFTs and dogs? And she's like, Just do a call with them. You'll see. They're amazing. I'm like this. I don't know, I have this concept of what I want to do with NFT. I want to speak to my contacts in the luxury industry. And I had this image of pet food in my mind and I just felt like, it's not sexy. You know what I mean? And she's like, well, listen, you have to do the call because I already told them you were doing it. Okay? I jumped on the call with Adrian Bell and Max, and I think it took the most of 30 seconds to be like, okay, number one, you guys are awesome. And I could see a professional relationship between us because when you go into a partnership, you're basically getting married to other people. You're speaking to each other at midnight, 02:00, a.m. Sunday morning, you haven't brushed your teeth yet, and you're ready on your fifth call. But yeah, they kind of gave me a vision of what they wanted to do. And I think that was the instrumental moment for us, was the first conversations because what I was scared of and what the others were scared of actually, I'm saying hi, but we were all scared of that. Some of us might be here for the wrong reasons because obviously every time you have hype around the topic, you're scared that you're partnering with people that might be tactical, short term, trying to bounce on an opportunity instead of looking at long term strategy and vision. And so we said, okay, if we do this, how do we ensure that DOGAMI exists five years from now, ten years from now? What are the foundations that we're going to be putting into place so that we actually build a scalable experience and do something that would potentially at some point become allow for mass market adoption, but also be a platform that could help people transition from web two to Web3. I think we spent two months just talking about what was the right direction, what was the wrong direction, what it was that we needed. We wanted everybody to be able to have some kind of an emotional connection with Dogami, because I think what makes a Likable brand is relatability, but it's also depth of the universe that you're building, the environment, the characters. If everything feels cold and has no purpose, then it's very difficult for you to have that emotional attachment. And we're like, let's take people on a journey. Let's give ourselves the chance of putting something in place where we leave maybe a mark on the history books as a product that's born in Web3 and that tried well, humbly saying is future facing in a way. But we wanted something thing that would allow for us to develop future products in the future that are web based, others that are physical. But your entry point is always going to be your NFT and that's our authenticity. Why should we just make it an NFT project with no justification? So one of the first things kind of all the lined on was, okay, what's the lore? What's the story behind these dogs? Why they call the Dogami. Are they special? Is there something that we don't know about them yet? Is there something that we're going to be able to share through time with our audience? And how are the ways that we're going to tell that story? So we spent well, we're still doing it now. So we worked with Brian Jlglass from Marvel Comics. Then we onboarded Michael Raya from DreamWorks with whom who works on some Dreamwork shorts. And we were like, okay, we want to build something that allows for a long timeline of stories that we can tell and allow for events to happen. When is first contact of Dogamis on Earth and what has happened between that moment to now? And why are we under the impression that these are just dogs? Can we rewrite the history of dogs on Earth? And if we do, how do we do it? We kind of all were aligned on that and we're like, let's work on the story so that the story feeds the game, so that the game doesn't feel shallow. And, yeah, listen, everybody was aligned. Everybody kind of decided that we were in it for the long run. Everybody took the risk and left everything that they were doing behind to focus on this. And we're only at the beginning of our story, but it's super exciting.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Yes, I've been part of this journey like I was sharing with you when I met you in La. Like, December of last year. So since before the first NFT drop, which was released on February 22 of 22 and now 22 over the course of the entire calendar year has been deemed like Doga day, which is really awesome. And you guys have done an amazing job at really cultivating a strong community and cultivating people who are really passionate about the project, myself included, and bringing all star players into it. So the feel when you're part of the Doga family and you're in there, is there's definitely long term vision here. This is not a pump and dump type of project. Build a game up, you guys, make your millions, run off and do your next thing. We really want to see this project become, like you said, products, other things in the web world and so on. So I think it's super commendable. I'm like, all in.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Thank you. I have to give credit to Adrian on the community building. I mean, I touch wood, but I hope this guy is not going to have a heart attack, because this guy is working on human hours, on trying to make sure that the community is happy. And every decision we have, like, five pivots every time he's like, okay, but we have to make sure because if we do this, we might anger the community. So let's try and find the best way to communicate news without giving too much spoilers, because otherwise we're setting deadlines, and if we are late on the deadlines for any reason so let's go back to the drawing board. He's pacing left and right, and he's like, oh, my God. I know, Doug. Lovell you. Trust me, I know. I'm trying. I've been with Doug for 13 years. He's probably one of the most passionate people that you can meet, and he does have the best interest of everybody at heart, and I think nobody realizes. And we're still in the process of realization, actually, how much work it is and how many people are working in the background today. We're more than 40 people at the Dogami. And to build something from the ground up is a lot of work, and we try to give enough so that everyone sees the direction we're going into without giving too much spoilers, which is very difficult to do because obviously when you're excited about something, the first thing you want to do is share some spoilers, right?
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Tell everybody about it.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Guys, we're doing something so amazing right now, I want to share it. And there's a lot of discussion at the office of, you think we can share this sneak peek? Or like, yeah, but some things inside, some elements might still change. So if you do this, there's no going back. Everything we need to measure to make sure that we're taking the right decisions. But it's super exciting. There's a lot of stuff coming that I'm really excited that we'll be able to share shortly. I can tell you in December, there's a sneak peek that's going to come there's a sneak peek coming in December of something very cool that we're preparing for early next year. And yeah, finally we're going to be able to reveal a bit of story, which I've been dying to do for a good year and a half. Oh, my God, that's going to be cool.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Well, I mean, your excitement over the project just, like, fuels my excitement about the project. I know that it is super crazy trying to build something, like you said, from the ground up, but the passion and the excitement that you guys have is just what kind of keeps things going, allows you to work those long hours. Adrian pacing around back and forth. You're, like, hoping he doesn't have a heart attack, but he's so excited about everything going on that it just gives him, like, he probably doesn't have to eat very much because he's just sustained all along through the excitement, and that's super exciting.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Adrian talks a lot. So when we have business lunches, we're in these shared office space in Paris, but we have our block for us. And so obviously, next to all these places are always these small restaurants. And every time we go for lunch, it's his moment where at lunch he knows nobody's on his laptop. So he's like and then we arrive at the end of lunch. He hasn't touched this place. I don't need to eat when I'm dead.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That's what I'm saying. Because it's just like fueling him. Okay, switching gears before we run out of time, I want you just maybe even just a couple of minutes. So we talked about the creation of Dogami tell people, listeners that may not know anything about Dogami. Like, what is it? Like, we know it's a play and earn game. Like there's a game that people have these NFT dogs with. But just from your point of view, what is it?
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Well, from my point of view, I have to be careful how I say this. From my point of view, what we're trying to do with DOGAMI is to create potentially the next Pokemon that's born on the blockchain. I think that kind of gives you a little bit of an idea of our ambition. We want to deliver a deep experience, obviously constrained by what you can do on mobile, but where we can stretch that experience to physical products. But in effectively what happens is as a user, you would adopt your own unique DOGAMI and you will raise your DOGAMI, unlocking along the way all of his, let's say, hidden and secret attributes and discovering how special your DOGAMI is. And then you will be able to take place in competitions with your DOGAMI to be able to go up the leaderboards. There's this concept of nurturing and training and teamwork between yourself and your DOGAMI, which I think is fun and original. When it comes to mechanics itself, we're really trying to find what are the games that offer casual to mid core gameplay where you allow for real progression to happen, but at the same time, it's easy to pick up and play and we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. I think it would be way too risky to do something that's never been done before in terms of actual game loops and mechanics. We want to use that something that's a battle proven kind of concept so that we make sure that we're delivering an experience, number one, that we can execute on. But number two, we know already has large audiences around the world and we apply our IP to it so that people can enjoy their Dogami to the fullest. I think that's really what we want to do with the gambling. And I use Pokemon as an example because I think that number one. I grew up on Pokemon because I was one of the first players on Game Boy with Pokemon Red. My sister had Pokemon blue. And I just remember being able to step into such a unique environment and rich environment full of story, where you were attracted to it, you wanted more of it. And what's great is with mobile apps now, you can update constantly your app so we can do the same and we can continue to scale the experience with new things onto the app. So that really is what we want to be able to accomplish.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That's incredible. So why did you guys choose Tezos's blockchain? What about Tezos's drew Dogami to them.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 So there are a few sexy reasons and there's a few unsexy reasons in full transparency. So one of the unsexy reasons is that we wanted to use a blockchain on which we knew 100% we could start working on right away without having to do too much learning on the technical side. Bilal had been working for multiple years with his team on the Tezos's blockchain, and it was a blockchain that they knew that they could jump on right away and do what was necessary for us to start building the initial blocks of what the DOGAMI would become on the technical side. But we were in discussions with a few other blockchains and what really kind of tipped it over is the sustainability aspect. So some of us at the Dogami are parents, and we want to make sure that the world of tomorrow for our children is a sustainable and clean one. And I think it would have been even outside of our core values, to go with a blockchain that would have been maybe easier in a moment where there was some super high prices on Ethereum and things like that, and it could have been a choice to go there. But what kind of message are we really sending out? So we thought, Listen, let's go with Tezos. It's scalable blockchain and it's a blockchain that we can work on and let's follow our heart and our values instead of trying to follow the green. I love it, but it was a tough choice. It was a tough choice because a lot of investors that we were talking to in the beginning that, why don't you choose polygon? And now I think a lot of them are kind of convinced, and I have to say that the Tezos's Foundation has been extremely supportive as well. If you want things to function, then you need to have those strong partnerships with the right people that respect you, and that should be equally nice as you would treat them. And I think that's the kind of relationship we have with Tezos. Yeah, very happy to be there.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 I love it. I think Tezos is a great blockchain and they're one that's going to be sticking around for the future and they're going to stay. You didn't build on a wonky or a janky chain that's going to be here today and gone tomorrow. They definitely do have, like you said, a sustainable future. And as a parent myself, it's very important to have that for our children. My daughter has her own dog, Yammy, I have my own dog, Dogami, and I wanted to share this story with you. I debated sharing it publicly or if I would share it on the back end, but I think it's so cool that I'm living right now. An epic love story. I found my soulmate, I found my person, and it all was centered around helping this guy by his own dog, Amy. Yes. So Dogamy will forever be part of my future. It is currently in my present moment. And together jointly, we have an Australian shepherd. We named her Penny Mae. And yes, our first dog, we purchased together.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 Oh, my God. That's a crazy story. I love it.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 It's so amazing. Yeah, so I'm just.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 That's awesome.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Of course, you know, you know, my heart is like all in the Dogami project and just helping people get picking up their pups along the way as we go.
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 That's amazing. But that's the super cool side of being part of a community. It's being able to hear those stories. I've been lucky enough to meet a few community members as I traveled along. Max was in Singapore and he had dinner with a few community members as well, and he came back with such a small space and he's like, wow, it's so amazing to meet some of our community members and to actually get to see their faces. And he's like, that was username. I'm like, no way, right? You know what I mean? It's really cool to have this kind of family feeling.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 It absolutely is. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Kris. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing the whole story. The background stuff that most people don't really get to hear about. I think it's really cool that you got to share that today. Like the future of Dogami, where it's going, everything. And as we get ready to pull this train into the station, is there anything else? I want people to be able to connect with the Dogami Project. I want them to be able to connect with you. I will put all that in the show notes, but is there anything else that you want to say before we close this thing down?
 
 [Kristofer Penseyres]
 No. I would say one thing is that we're more than just a team at Core in our offices, and we do listen to everything. And I think we're extremely lucky that Alex, Andy and John are continuously getting all the feedback and we have excel forms of feedback. And I just want to say keep it going as much as you can because everything is incredibly useful. And obviously we are trying to build something that serves you before anybody else. Your feedback is super important and it can be hard feedback to read is even sometimes a bit better. So, yes, please do send it. Continue sending your feedback. Sorry, I have kids that just arrived. No worries. But yes, please continue sending feedback. And we are listening. We're reading all the feedback. And go a little bit further if you can, and tell us exactly what it is that you want to see as well. Not only what you think doesn't work or what you think works, but what might not be there and what you might not see on face value but you would love to be able to do with your dog. It's super important to us, and if we don't know, we can't make the changes.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That's true. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you again. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. For those of you listening as we pull this ride into the station, be sure to exit on your right and we will see you on the next one.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 You made it. Congratulations. That wasn't so bad, was it? I hope you laughed and learned a little bit more about this Web3 universe and how simple and fun it can really be. Would you be so kind as to leave us a review and share it with your friends and family? It would mean so much to get this out to more people as we embark on the greatest transfer of wealth that has ever happened in human history. Can't wait to see you on the next one.