Some of the best startups to come out of the Covid 19 (2021-22 era) have been online community driven. Whereby an interdisciplinary mix of like minded people have come together to solve problems, ideate, create, code and innovate. But what happens when projects are so successful, that they outgrow their grassroute, fringe origins; and make enough money to garner the attention of one of the worlds famous brands, like Nike, who promptly buys them out. Well for a masterclass in Community management post exit I give you RTFKT:-

Meet The Founder, Benoit Pagotto

At the BoF Professional Summit, RTFKT’s co-founder explained why he agreed to sell to Nike in 2021, and unpacked how brands can leverage web3 and associated technologies to grow their communities.

“A lot of brands are getting it wrong — they need to stop thinking about their business and ask instead: ‘what can I do for my community?’” said Benoit Pagotto, co-founder of virtual fashion start-up RTFKT Studios.

Pagotto added that fashion brands need to invest in incentivising individuals to build an engaged community in the long run.

Giving people access to digital assets or tokens such as NFTs, which can increase in value over time, helps customers feel they are contributing to a brand’s growth story, he explained, but adding that brands also need a new mindset.

“The word ‘consumer’ is over,” he said, noting how the democratising nature of the web3. “has shifted power to the individual, and now brands’ communities will define their value.”

The Clone-X Fandom

So, what could be driving that fandom?

That drip: RTFKT makes its mark distinctly aesthetically. A fashion brand has to be fashionable. I know we just learned the word drip, but check out that drip! 🤤
Killer Collabs: One thing I find special about RTFKT is its breadth and quality of collabs. RTFKT collaborates with artists and iconic brands to create digital fashion, pushing forward creative boundaries and technological possibilities. For holders and fans, RTFKT creates blockchain-based collectible art x fashion x virtual goods x physical goods x identity x the thrill of being part of something new, blingy, and cutting-edge.
Community: What stands out about the RTFKT community is its loyal, deeply invested and knowledgeable, and professionally-run ethos. While there are plenty of 'gm's (and I find RTFKT's own twitter voice actually a bit too noisy), for each meme-y exchange, there are many more genuine conversations about how RTFKT collections relate to or differ from each other (Staple? Fewo? Space Drip or sneaker? Physical forge?), which item to buy, and how much value the company has created for "hodlers" over time. If you spend any time in the discord, you will likely also encounter RTFKTLukson, a former community member-turned moderator-turned staff member who pseudonymously created guides such as this one which explains the Clone-X drop and qualifying pre-sales in great detail (upon which I also based my RTFKT universe illustration above) - his or her contributions lend an air of professionalism and arbitration in the discord.
Blue chip team: The RTFKT team is experienced and authentic to their vision, with a background spanning luxury fashion, gaming, esports, trading collectibles, music and media. Add to this their backing by a16z, the crypto & pop culture-versed gold-plated venture firm. (As an aside: will a16z be the Sequoia of crypto-web3? Is it already?) To provide a few comparisons, the MekaVerse collection I previously profiled was launched by two unknown artists with zero venture backing; BAYC which is now known as a blue chip NFT collection also was launched by unknown anonymous artists - so perhaps you never know, but an experienced team with an actually knowledgeable VC partner behind them certainly doesn't hurt.

What's the Drop?

Clone-X is a drop of 20,000 3D avatars for the metaverse.

Say what??

If you haven't heard of the metaverse, think a mash-up between your actual world - waking up in your bed, making a cup of coffee or walking around the block for your fix, sitting at your desk or (if you're one of those rare few) going to your office and opening your computer, going to a friend's house or meeting up at a restaurant for dinner - and digital world - navigating that awkward half-second on Zoom when your appointment arrives in the meeting room with video off, feeding your Neopet back in the day, checking your Slack messages with 100 useless pings and a few nuggets. The metaverse is an imagined future universe where the digital world looks a lot more like our physical world - with houses and apartments, office buildings, restaurants, shopping malls, virtual dogs and cats and ponies - and we're walking around in it.

How? Represented by 3D avatars, perhaps.

Enter Clone-X. The teasers have indicated a wide range of avatar looks - I am particularly excited to see many female-looking avatars, as well as more diverse traits besides simply, "alien". Also, the animation and mobility for the avatars looks dope. (Check out the video below!).

Before I get into my own RTFKT trading journey, here are the deets on the Clone-X drop.

Clone-X Mint process

(Mint = original creation of an NFT, typically the first opportunity to buy it. In contrast, buying on "secondary" refers to buying an NFT after it has been minted, when it is being resold by its owner on an NFT marketplace like Opensea, one of the most popular NFT marketplaces today.)

Private pre-sale starting Nov 27 (time tbd), available for 48 hours. Any and all existing holders of an RTFKT NFT have the opportunity to participate in this pre-sale and purchase up to 3 Clone-X avatars for 0.05Ξ each. And only existing RTFKT holders get to participate - there is no other way to access the pre-sale.
Public sale Nov 29, Dutch Auction with starting price between 1-3Ξ (final price tbd)
During the sale, you will buy a Clone-X non-revealed token (similar to MetaVerse experience, reveal will be possible via a website a few days later) Interestingly reveal is up to the owner, so there may be some slight considerations of whether you’d want to reveal or not, but my understanding is most people will simply reveal as soon as they can to see which avatar they got!

Now you know what RTFKT is, and how you can participate in the Clone-X drop. Why might you want to participate, and why and what did I buy in so far? Read on if you want the details!

Warning, I did go into copious detail on my decision information, rationale, exactly what my ROI estimations are, and my trading plans for the upcoming Clone-X drop and aftermarket.

You can also wait for Trading in Public - RTFKT part 2, where I'll recap what happens in this drop.

Selling to Nike

Shortly before Christmas of 2021, Nike announced a new brand had joined its roster of subsidiaries, following in the footsteps of Converse and Jordan. The awkward thing was, the company’s logo looked suspiciously similar to Nike’s own — a cyberpunk swoosh forking left to right. “We started with Nike models before we did our own,” says Benoit Pagotto, a former luxury strategist and e-sports merchandiser who co-founded RTFKT in January 2020. “Modding them, remixing them in 3D. We did a logo that is this futuristic swoosh, and now we’re the fourth brand of Nike. So that’s pretty crazy.”

The Community Backlash

While the move was described by most of media as Nike making more moves in the metaverse, there was immediate criticism from NFT enthusiasts on social channels.

Critics were put off by Nike’s decision to purchase the company outright, indicating it was taking an authoritative approach viewed as antithetical to the web 3.0 metaverse ideal, which advocates for a decentralized version of the virtual world, where users can interact and collaborate freely without the limitations inherent to a closed system with a single authority.

Notably, Nike’s actions stand in start contrast to Adidas‘ decision to collaborate and work with decentralized platforms like Bathing Ape Yacht Club and Sandbox.

In addition to the Nike’s top down approach, largely viewed as ham-fisted attempt to control intellectual property, multiple members of the NFT community also pointed out shady actions taken by people with an association with ARTFCT prior to the sale. In one thread, Twitter user @itsdrmoose used Etherscan to track large ETH transactions between Twitter vinnyvader.eth (identified as the cousin of RTFKT co-counder Chris Le) with Twitter users @sarah1of1, @karaholiday17 that appeared suspicious given they were made the week before the announcement was made.

The thread includes a screen grab of a since deleted alleged tweet on December 12, 2021 by @karahholiday17 in which she told wrote, “just wait til tomorrow, I would buy” in response to someone who questioned her all in $100,000 investment in ARTFCT’s Clone X NFTs.

Prior to controversial purchases, other users pointed out RTFCT’s suspicious actions in relations to what was set up as a Dutch auction, a bidding technique that begins with a set ceiling price, which gradually drops at specific time intervals.

RTFCT had set the ceiling for the CLONE X NFTs at 3 ETH for the November 29th auction, but as the price steadily dropped and approached 1 ETH, the auction was paused. RTFCT took to Twitter to announce the website was being attacked, forcing the company to put a pause on minting until the following day.

When RTFCT resumed minting, the CLONE X NFTs were priced at 2TH. In addition to questioning the validity of the attack claims, some users on Twitter claimed the company had shut down its Discord to preempt complaints about the auction.

Following the auction, there were further complaints about RTFCT’s announcing CLONE X licensing restrictions after the auction rather than take the typical route and provide them in advance.

Check out a summary of RTFKT complaints below.

The NFT community presented the following points –

1) Team paused minting

The statement refers to the time when the RTFKT’s Dutch auction didn’t sell out. Although many members counteracted it by saying they stopped the minting due to the DDOS attack (distributed denial of service) website attack.

2) Mint resumed the next day

The above claim also presented that the new NFTs came at a price of 2 ETH, rather than the original price of 3 ETH. However, @CYPX77 tweeted ‘since most of the 3 ETH received free clones so the company changed the prices.’

3) RTFKT announced IP rights after mint.

Simply put, Intellectual property (IP) rights are legal rights that provide creators protection for their original works. This is normally stated before the minting process of NFTs.

4) The team reserved the rarest clones.

Conversely, the company did announce that it reserved some clones for branding purposes. But many community members were not aware of this announcement until the minting process was completed.

5) Deal with NIKE

We all know that NIKE recently acquired RTFKT. For many, it came as a surprise but the company said they talked about the NIKE deal in their discord channel and it wasn’t quite a secret. So anybody who looked over would know. This was also the reason that NIKE deal rumours were out before it actually happened.

6) Insider trading

This is the most debated topic in RTFKT’s history. Basically, many transactions of NFTs were linked to Sarah and Vinny who are related to RTFKT’s Co-Founder.

The relation between Sarah and the co-founder (clegfx) was supported by his earlier tweet where he referred to Sarah as his cousin.

Moreover, Sarah transaction history showed her dumping all her 5 Clone X NFTs after the rumours were all over the place.

RTFKT Community Agenda ⚡

In Q1 2022 RTFKT announced it’s community agenda and roadmap leading up to the infamous NFT NYC event:-

Week 5

✅2 feb — MNLTH Airdrop

✅6 feb — Loot Pod airdrop

Week 6

✅10 feb — #SPAMYOURCLONEDAY on twitter

✅11 feb — Zen Session with Kenji in RTFKT Discord

✅11 feb — MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 1

✅12 feb —MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 2

✅13 feb — MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 3

Week 7

✅14 feb — MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 4

✅15 feb — MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 5

✅16 feb — MNLTH Quest 1, Challenge 6

✅17 feb — #SPAMYOURCLONEDAY on twitter

✅17 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 1

✅18 feb — Zen Session with Kenji in RTFKT Discord

✅18 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 2

✅19 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 3

✅20 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 4

Week 8

✅21 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 5

✅22 feb — MNLTH Quest 2, Challenge 6

✅23 feb — #SPAMYOURCLONEDAY on twitter

Week 9

✅2 mar — #SPAMYOURCLONEDAY on twitter

✅4 mar — Zen Session with Kenji in RTFKT Discord

Week 10

✅7 mar snapshot Murakami Flowers

✅9 mar — #SPAMYOURCLONEDAY on twitter

✅13 mar — RTFKT Fitness with Ricco Phinisee

Week 11

✅15 mar —Opening of the MetaDungeon game

✅15 mar —RTFKT TheSandBoxGame’s first NFT Collection [Sale]

✅15 mar — MNLTH Quest 3.1

✅16 mar — #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

✅16 mar — MNLTH Quest 3.2

✅17 mar — MNLTH Quest 3.3

✅18 mar — MNLTH Quest 3.3

Week 12

✅23 mar — #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

Week 13

Week 14

⏳6 apr— #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

⏳xx mar — Zen Session with Kenji in RTFKT Discord

Week 15

⏳11 apr — ‘Clone Of The Week’ introduction

⏳11 apr— Clone Of The Week Challenge

⏳12 apr— Clone Of The Week Ann

⏳13 apr — #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

Week 16

⏳18 apr — Clone Of The Week Challenge

⏳19 apr— Clone Of The Week Ann

⏳20 apr— #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

Week 17

⏳25 apr — Clone Of The Week Challenge

⏳26 apr— Clone Of The Week Ann

⏳27 apr— #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

week 18

⏳2 may — Clone Of The Week Challenge

⏳3 may — Clone Of The Week Ann

⏳4 may — #CLONEXTAKINGOVER Twitter

week 19

⏳9 may — Clone Of The Week Challenge

⏳10 may — Clone Of The Week Ann

⏳11 may —#CLONEXTAKINGOVER NEW YORK

⏳11 may — NYC RTFKT CLONE PARTY EVENT

3D Files Released

In an effort to claw back public support RTFKT released it’s 3D files for creators.

A new Era begins 3D Files Full Commercial Rights It’s time to CREATE #clonesunlocked All Clone owners can unlock their 3D Files Alpha on https://clonex.rtfkt.com/inventory Available in : .max .blend .c4d .gltf .fbx files for @unity and @UnrealEngine Be patient, there is no Rush. It can take up to 15min to get your files ready to download. We’re expecting : - A new generation of Creators to emerge - Collectors commissioning Creators to build their Clone IP and Brand. - Clone Vtubers - Video game demos - Fanart NFT’s - New Brands and Wearables to be created - Dope things - Weird things - Unite and CREATE Full Commercial Rights You can now use your Clone to : - Mint Fan art NFT - Make Merch - Vtubing - Make music / videos - Make a brand - Make a restaurant - Limit is your imagination and no use of the RTFKT Blade logo, and awful / unlawful stuff. New Discord Channel for 3D Files : #💬・3d-general Commercial Rights Channel : #🧬・clone-law Murakami Drip Clones are Fine Art and don't have Full Commercial Rights. You can create dope content and create with the 3D Files as long as not commercialized/minted. Read more about what this means for the future of the Clone X Ecosystem, Web3 and RTFKT community: https://rtfktstudios.medium.com/a-new-era-begins-the-start-of-the-avatar-economy-91f644be33be Twitter https://twitter.com/RTFKTcreators

Tutorials

To support creatives, a whole host of 3D Tutorials were released.

How to Download and Customize your 3D CloneX Avatar

How to Pose and Make Renders with your CloneX

How to Create a Snap Filter with your CloneX

Download Snap Studio: https://ar.snap.com/download

Clone X Base files to import into Snap Studio: https://rtfkt.app.box.com/s/4tcyng3m2...

Publishing your AR Filter on Snapchat guide: https://docs.snap.com/lens-studio/ref...

How to Use Snap Camera with Google Meet: https://www.addictivetips.com/web-con...

Commercial Rights

As for having full commercial rights to the NFTs, users will be able to use their Clones to:

Create derivatives/Mint Fan art NFT
Make Merchandise
Vtubing/Modeling
Make music/videos
Make a brand/business

Murakami Drip Clones

However, the Murakami Drip Clones are exempt from the full commercial rights since these are fine art. Users can only create content with the 3D files as long as it is not commercialized or minted.

Creator Challenges

INTRODUCING THE POD CREATOR CHALLENGE 🛠️ @everyone

We know how powerful the community is, and we’ve seen this evolve over time with the amazing creations you’ve put out there. We are launching our first Creator Challenge to take your ideas and skills to the next level.
Our first creator challenge is now live 🟢 🌐
Learn everything you need to know on how to participate here: https://medium.com/@RTFKTLukson/rtfkt-creator-challenge-brief-de14c209e6c7 📜
We also opened the creator-challenge Discord channel for you to show your work progress and find support when you need it. RTFKT’s community and staff will be there for you.
#・loot-pod-challenge
Can’t wait to see what you build! ✊
LOOT POD CREATOR CHALLENGE
The creators leveled up the game with this challenge.
Through :twitter:@ RTFKTcreators we went from new software to tutorials, from inspiration to creation.
We’re preparing for the future, together 🌐 🛠️ 🌎
Winners’ Announcement: May 31, 7pm CET (10 am PT / 1 pm EST)
https://twitter.com/RTFKT/status/1531353874296102913
@everyone

Jury Assembles

POD CHALLENGE WINNERS We want to thank all of you for being part of this unique experience. The submissions blew our minds and made it really tough, so we picked 5 winners! Watch the video of the jury going through the Top 10 + winner's selection.

NFT Marketplace

The winners of the Creator Challenge get minted as NFTs on Rarible. For example:-

JustFrederik, the 3rd place winner of RTFKT's Creator Challenge 16 presents the DeFi Demon Toy.

The RTFKT Community