Businesses are actively looking for people that know how to activate and leverage more direct customer relationships that Web3 will provide, and how Smart NFTs can enhance that relationship through next-level loyalty and incentives. Every company wants direct relationships with their own customers, and new ways to delight them and build community.
Many have observed that we are at the cusp of the next stage of the NFT phenomenon. The thing is, it’s so cutting edge, that many people don’t know what it is. What exactly is an NFT and how can one create a lucrative career in the emerging sector? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Pulier.
Eric Pulier is the inventor of the Smart NFT, and the CEO and founder of Vatom, a company working to make Web3 technologies easy and accessible for creators and brands. In 2015, Pulier envisioned a new world of human interaction and empowerment made possible by the concept of an NFT — and “Vatom,” short for “virtual atom,” became the very first Smart NFT. Today, Vatom Smart NFTs are the most widely used NFTs, with 30 million created and distributed by some of the world’s largest companies, including Verizon, P&G, State Farm, iHeart Media, and PepsiCo. He is a futurist, author, and philanthropist who has raised over a billion dollars for ventures he has founded or co-founded.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
Ihave been a lifelong student of technology. By the time I was in fourth grade in New Jersey, where I grew up, I was already programming, building arcade and adventure games with early experiments with 3D graphics and animation. When I was in high school, I started my first database computer company and have gone on to create 15 more over the course of 30 years. After college, I moved to the West Coast where I continued to build companies in the Los Angeles and Venice beach areas. While they have largely been tech-based, they are all rooted in reconnecting people and communities–I have always believed in the power of the internet to improve how we engage with one another, and with Web3 technology, this opportunity is more thrilling than ever.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
The publishing of the Satoshi Whitepapers on Bitcoin in 2008 was a seminal moment–it was a revolutionary idea that pointed to a new online value system that we had not seen before. In the years that followed, the implications of blockchain became clear, and how Web3 technologies could enhance our society and lives. I contend that Web3 could fulfill the original promise of the internet, which has the potential to deliver unprecedented economic and creative freedom for billions of people. Transformative ideas like the Satoshi papers have had a significant impact on how I’ve shaped my work — democratizing the internet will also humanize it, and the Satoshi Whitepaper is one of the works that paved the way.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?
It may seem counterintuitive, but one of the most enlightening and fascinating things is co-owning a bar, called Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. Established in 1931, Harvelle’s is the oldest live music venue in CA and is legendary for bringing people together from around the world for amazing and soulful live music. There is a surprising overlap between bars and the promise of the internet. Both are places people go to connect with and find their tribe — and some of my experiences there have influenced my thinking on Web3, Smart NFTs, and metaverse. In fact, the Smart NFT was a virtual beer, invented at Harvelle’s, the first blockchain token you could actually see, interact with, transfer to others, and redeem for real world goods.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My brother Greg has been a North Star throughout my life and career. His insights and understanding of technology and its implications are in a different–and highly elevated–league. For that reason, and many others, he serves as the CEO of Vatom Ventures, our company innovation arm. He studied brain sciences with an emphasis on computational and mathematical brain modeling and understands human behavior and connection in a really nuanced way. He has also founded multiple companies and built start-ups, and remains my most trusted technical and creative advisor. I’m lucky to have him as a brother and thought partner.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I enter all of my work with the posture of ‘how will this help people?’ From a macro perspective, our big project is making the Web3 tools accessible to everyone — not just developers and tech enthusiasts. Our goal is to reduce the current tech complexity that prevents consumers from entering and benefiting from this next evolution of the internet. We believe that the building blocks of Web3 — Smart NFTs, universal Wallet, and virtual spaces — can truly enhance the way we live our lives and experience the world around us.
Take for example music and entertainment. Right now we are working with elrow, a leading dance music event producer, and iHeart, the largest audio company in the world, to build unprecedented immersive experiences for fans that truly unlock the next frontier of fan engagement. I’m not talking just watching a concert in a virtual space (although that is part of it), but also getting direct access to artists and their content through smart digital objects, enhancing sponsor relationships, and staying connected to a community of fans from all over the world.
Imagine buying a ticket to a concert. The ticket is provided in the form of a Smart NFT that is stored in your universal Wallet. Ahead of the show, the Smart NFT provides a video of the artists in sound check. During the concert, it is programmed to offer you a discount on merchandise at the show, and VIP access to meet the artist. A few weeks later, when the artist is preparing to drop a new song, you get an exclusive preview through your Smart NFT.
In this scenario, not only do fans get access to the music and creators they love like never before, but artists and show producers now have a direct connection to each fan and their interests, creating the basis for a relationship built on value versus mass marketing.
We’re taking a giant step in showing the mainstream how powerful Web3 tools and Smart NFT applications can be across all aspects of business, entertainment, and daily life.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. I’m sure you get this question all the time. But for the benefit of our readers, can you explain in your own words what an NFT is, and why people are spending so much money on them?
An NFT is a token that represents a unique digital item that you have complete ownership of — its original, secure, immutable, and publicly verifiable thanks to blockchain. But I focus more on Smart NFTs, which is the basis for our company — and, actually Vatom, a portmanteau of virtual and atom, was the very first Smart NFT created in 2015. A Smart NFT is programmable and dynamic — it’s network-aware so it can respond to real time events. Essentially, it’s alive, which is what makes its application so exciting in both IRL and URL. It’s the difference between a watch and a smartwatch. A smart watch interacts with you, gives you goals, communicates and reacts to applications in the cloud, and can reward you based on the actions you take, while a watch just shows the time. Smart NFTs are pivotal to forwarding and innovating Business-to-Consumer relationships and unlocking new approaches to customer engagement and community building.
The NFT industry seems so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
CRM: Smart NFTs are making CRM sexy again. Brands have to market and advertise smarter in an value-based economy where the mindset is more respectful of the consumer’s time and privacy concerns. The result is going to be direct, ongoing, and much more valuable relationships between creators and consumers, who are now starting to see the power of Smart NFTs beyond the art and gaming industries (which receive a lot of attention and hype). Once a Lakers fan (for example) sees that a Smart NFT can send them immediate rewards when they win a game, exclusive access to meet a player, new forms of vibrant online communities, discounts on merchandise and the ability to create their own content and share it with others, that’s a relationship they want to keep with a brand, and even build on. This is an example of a “virtuous circle,” where a value-based engagement model encourages sharing, ethically gathers first party data, and allows brands to become better at providing personalized rewards and continue building the relationship. CRM started as a way to keep track of customer and prospect information and make it accessible; then it moved to platforms that enabled entire go-to-market strategies to be built and executed; now it’s taking the next step — the ability to create direct channels to individual customers and deliver personalized interactive content at scale to activate and nurture long term relationships. The Smart NFT Wallet will be the most powerful human communication tool since the invention of the internet itself.
DIRECT PAYMENTS: I think we’re poised to see limitless financial rewards in this space. An artist or creator can get paid directly for their work, which allows them to earn a living without third party intermediaries taking the fruits of their creativity or labor. With the direct relationships that Smart NFTs and universal Wallets will facilitate, people can honor and pay creators voluntarily. I predict that voluntary payments, made by communities and individuals, will outstrip nonvoluntary payments in the coming years thanks to the power of Smart NFTs and Web3. Web3 will not only change the way we do business and connect with the things we care about, but it also offers utility in addressing societal issues. A third of the world is “under” or “un” banked — meaning they have poor to no access to the financial services many of us take for granted. While it may be hard to imagine everyone getting a bank account, with a universal Wallet, anyone can be paid directly for their work without the need of a third party. Imagine a person without access to banking, now able to get paid directly for expressing themselves creatively or executing a unit of work, such as translating a sentence from one language to another, writing a poem, teaching a skill, telling a bedtime story, or playing a game on behalf of another user.
COMMUNITY: Web3 and platforms like Vatom that make these technologies easy to use will revolutionize the idea of online communities. For communities to become self-sustaining, they must be properly governed and have mechanisms to reward and incentivize participants and allow people to build reputation by contributing to the benefit of the group. The emergence of DAO’s (decentralized autonomous organizations) are in a nascent stage but are already creating massive disruption in how we think about self-organizing groups and what we can do to help them thrive. In addition, brands and other organizations are realizing their future depends on creating participatory communities of interest that want to engage because of alignment with purpose and authentic personal interests. You can’t fake authenticity and marketing initiatives that try will increasingly fall on deaf ears. Marketing, loyalty, and advertising are going to roll into one concept — “value for time”, and the winners in this new era will be those that recognize value will come from true ownership and true social connection. Web3, and what many call “metaverse”, adds an ownership and social layer on the internet as we know it. A good example is what we are seeing with the ComicCon Metaverse. This is a global group of enthusiasts, creators and fans who want to express creativity, engage in commerce, and explore new adventures together, as a community. By providing them with a platform to build, buy, and interact, the Comic Con Metaverse is a good example of what literally millions of other groups will be doing in the near future.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
Exclusivity — Web3 tools should not be limited to those with wealth and insiders. I’ve used the phrase “Metaverse for the rest of us” several times. I see a lot of reputable companies entering the space with exclusive approaches for top-tier audiences and, in my opinion, it’s a really limited take on what Web3 can do. We are all meant to succeed and thrive in Web3, but we have to collectively commit to making it an equitable space. This means abstracting away the complexity, dramatically increasing openness and utility for communities, and democratizing creation tools.
Perception — Celebrities and risky speculators are monopolizing a lot of conversation. Web3 tech and tools are not just for speculation, they are the framework for the future of business and human connection. But much of its true value is lost in the hype. In many ways, the current crash in the NFT marketplace is a positive for the industry, allowing for serious developers and companies to be more visible in defining the future of Web3. In 2015, we forecast that the first wave of NFTs would be get-rich-quick schemes and rampant speculation, like most early-stage technology, and that the next wave would be about engagement and utility that has the power to change business and society. The World Wide Web took a similar path from its inception, and now the NFT sector is entering its next stage. It’s an exciting time, reminiscent of the Web in 1996.
Regulation — There is a good deal of inconsistency in how NFTs and other tokens are currently classified, and how governments will treat them in the future, even from country to country. I’m in favor of clarity in this space — it will boost our work collectively. Regulation is very positive when done in conjunction with the people and companies in the space. In fact, better regulation provides guidelines that could unlock massive productivity and growth in the economy as a whole. However, it should be noted that there is already sufficient regulation and guidelines for conservative companies to safely conduct business in the space, and to carefully stay clear of any controversial areas until they are better clarified. Today hundreds of companies in the Global 2000 have already drawn those lines and are building powerful systems to leverage the power of Web3 technologies safely, legally, and ethically. Compliance with privacy, security, tax and other laws are the key building blocks of platforms like Vatom and have paved the way to bring these capabilities to mainstream audiences.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about NFTs? Can you explain what you mean?
Smart NFTs are much more than dynamic art objects, and they aren’t relegated to augmented reality treasure hunts or contest entries. They’re not a game at all, they’re actually game-changers. We can experience real-world everyday benefits, and that’s why we’re so driven to show how. When you can get a free coffee by sharing it, early access to a concert in real-world or virtual spaces, create secure and trackable documents for government and business, or make the deed to your home a completely secure smart contract, Smart NFTs are literally adding value to our lives. We have work to do to revert the misunderstanding that NFTs are just cool JPEGs and digital art, but actually fundamentally important tools of business and engagement. That’s why we’re focused on showing, and importantly, providing a platform that simplifies the complexity of Web3 and Smart NFTs. The Vatom “wallet of wallets” (WOW), is focused on this issue — that is, making the Smart NFT as common as email and text messages for everyday usage, and far more powerful in many ways for secure, authentic distribution of value.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the NFT industry. What can be done to avoid that?
Many are jumping in quickly because they see NFTs being sold for truly jaw-dropping sums, and it’s capturing a “get rich quick” audience and very wealthy individuals who are in this space just for sport or short-term gain. This market is largely based on a “greater fool theory” of getting out before someone else is left holding the bag. It’s not a market I’m interested in, and from the start have been advocating for the far more impactful and substantive use cases. This kind of speculation overlooks and undervalues the true potential of NFTs and Web3. Smart NFTs will change how brands connect with consumers and the way consumers engage with the creators, artists, musicians and communities they care about. To assume that NFTs are just speculative JPEGs or that the Metaverse is just virtual spaces for kid’s games completely discounts the evolution from Web2 to Web3.
Those that are serious about success in the Web3 and NFT space should focus on how the building blocks of Web3 — Smart NFTs, a universal Wallet, and virtual spaces — can create new opportunities for direct connection and deeper engagement. True ownership and social connections will lead to next generation community and commerce. This will profoundly affect the science of data collection, personalized marketing, and loyalty, as well as customer service, education, government, health care and everywhere else where Web2 applied before.
How do you think NFTs have the potential to help society in the future?
I’ll start by saying I think it’s time to start thinking about the cultural and everyday applications of Smart NFTs as part of our reality now, and not a futuristic vision. Smart NFTs will elevate our education, health care, entertainment, community, and so much more. Let’s take education, there has never been a greater demand or need for effective virtual learning tools than today, and the pandemic underscored that building better and more flexible digital learning systems is paramount to educating future generations. However, current tools only go so far without creating boredom and fatigue, the opposite of what’s needed for effective learning. Smart NFTs can provide motivation to learn and opportunity for creative play, which will better connect them to the material they’re learning. Further, by experiencing the objects in augmented reality and virtual spaces, the power of the metaverse vision becomes clear. For instance, learning a skill in social settings within virtual environments, such as English as a Second Language, is dramatically more effective than any other format we’ve seen to date.
Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
Businesses are actively looking for people that know how to activate and leverage more direct customer relationships that Web3 will provide, and how Smart NFTs can enhance that relationship through next-level loyalty and incentives. Every company wants direct relationships with their own customers, and new ways to delight them and build community.
A command of NFT developer skills could provide limitless job potential. Hundreds of brands across industries are wading into Web3 waters. Developers are now needed — those who can combine these skills with knowledge in the F&B, fashion, and real estate industries will likely find an immediate need for work. The key is to first understand the difference between speculation and engagement, and emphasize the latter as you study the many existing examples of successful programs in the space. Then get involved on any level to gain experience and help innovate yourself. It’s an early enough field that you can’t help but co-create new ideas even as you build your first projects. This will put you far ahead of the pack and position you well for the future.
Artists need creative Smart NFT ideas. Thanks to increasingly smarter NFTs, the original creator of a digital product can receive royalty any time that product is resold. Identifying new ways an artist or creator can be compensated or rewarded for their original work is incredibly valuable. While we are pleased to see the end of the rampant speculation era of NFTs, the most important and lasting innovation to come of that time was the introduction of artist royalties for their work. Providing creators the ability to monetize their work is one of the most important areas in the sector now and moving forward.
DAOs are beginning to govern the blockchain space where NFTs live and operate. Know why decentralized community-led groups are being built with new governance models, and join them to broaden your network and get conversant on smart contracts, voting and reputation systems, and real-time rewards programs.
If you’re a creator, start to navigate the NFT communities and connect with pioneers in the space who have seen sustainable success, not just in becoming followers of the speculation trend but in truly innovating new use cases for Smart NFTs. The social community surrounding NFT artists and the marketplace is especially active and informative at present.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
It’s a movement to reconnect — to reimagine community in richer, more meaningful ways. Web3, with tools like Smart NFTs, can humanize our digital engagement again. If more people could see just how transformative Web3 will be, and how much they stand to potentially gain for their business or organization, mass adoption and enthusiasm will move at lightning speeds. Join me!
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Hard to pick from my list of hundreds of luminaries I deeply admire, but for your question I’ll narrow it to three amazing people. First, Tim Berners Lee, who continues to be a true innovator and beacon of light for humanity. His pioneering work on the World Wide Web affects every aspect of society today, and his recent work in identity is among the most important in the space. Marc Benioff, who inspires me every day for his brilliant entrepreneurship and deep commitment to philanthropy. Marc pioneered the current generation of cloud applications and CRM, which will now adopt Web3 technologies to power the next generation of the internet. And lastly, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, who combined rare vision, technical acumen, and operational skills to help the founders and team create one of the most impactful and awe-inspiring companies in human history.
