"The original pitch of Anybodies was 'imagine having lifetime, guaranteed access to an Off-White drop.' Imagine doing that, but not just for Off-White, we're doing it for every possible company out there. It creates a fly-wheel effect. The more companies that sign up and brands we bring on, and artists we bring on, the more utility and value gets driven back to the holders. The holders of Anybodies OG collection will always be top priority in terms of value driven back. That is always our number one goal, but in a sustainable way. We're not into that whole random hype cycle type thing. We're trying to build real shit here.” - Elli De Gouveia, Co-Founder and CEO at Anybodies

Flying under the Radar, for Now

"They all need users. It's very hard to get users," Elli De Gouveia, Co-Founder and CEO of Anybodies, told a small crowd of listeners on Twitter Spaces celebrating the launch of the Anybodies platform. "We are the source of players. We're the source of new users."

It’s very hard to get users.

Large tech corporations, video game developers, hip-hop producers, celebrities, and NFT projects are all on the quest to build a larger audience of users (i.e. fans, listeners, members, customers, players, etc.). User acquisition—the art of getting new users—is an incredibly competitive environment today that touches every industry in the world. It’s expensive, and it continues to get more difficult as attention spans decline in tandem with social media companies continuing to optimize for short-form content.

User acquisition is the problem that Anybodies, an NFT project transformed into a promising tech company, is working to solve. The project comes from humble origins, taking 18 days to fully mint and not seeing any real moment in the spotlight of web3 until they launched the official Toys "R" Us NFT collection in December 2022.

The solution comes in the form of the newly launched Anybodies platform, a novel SAAS product that aims to serve as the mesh between the world's largest brands and their users.

"This is a fully platformized solution. We call it the Rewards Engine. Anyone can take it and put it into their game, or their platform. It'll seamlessly work with their entire tech stack."

Imagine rewards programs, retail merchandise purchases, NFT holder benefits, and in-game purchases all running, either directly or indirectly, through the platform. Rewards will be permissionless to use, opening the door to practically endless possibilities of what they can be used for. A user could hypothetically earn rewards points at Delta Airlines and sell them on a natively-integrated marketplace, or even perhaps swap them for Starbucks or Amazon points.

Meet the new Anybodies Platform pic.twitter.com/DkY78uufbF
— ANYBODIES (@AnybodiesNFT) April 21, 2023

For the first time in history, top-charting artists will be able to clearly identify their most loyal fans and reward them in special ways. Brand rewards points will transact through their own ecosystem instead of being permanently linked to an individual. Users will be able to build meaningful relationships with brands like never before.

This platform, rumored to already have deals locked in with many globally influential established brands, is primed to onboard millions of people to the world of web3 through its frictionless experience that solves a genuine need in the real world.

"The ultimate goal is how can we onboard the masses and take NFTs to the next level."

The future is here, and consumers are ready for it. Elli agrees, noting that consumers are increasingly asking brands: “What’s in it for me?” when considering purchases. This is naturally leading to better rewards programs and more incentives being pushed to people viewed as prospects, which shines a bigger spotlight on many of the issues with today's rewards programs and the poor infrastructure they run on.

Today, the way companies have to set up rewards programs is clunky. It takes a long time and a big budget for companies to set up joint promotions, users aren't able to transfer points, and there's no central hub for users to easily manage their rewards programs across various brands. The Anybodies platform eliminates all of these issues, enabling brands to provide rewards to their consumers in novel ways impossible without the use of underlying blockchain technology.

Real Products are Key

Aside from the NFT projects that believe creating plushy toys alone is the path to creating a globally prominent brand with staying power (it's not), very few teams are focused on leveraging real products to grow and drive revenue. Anybodies is one of them.

The team, despite its decision six months ago to pivot from focusing 100% on fashion towards the subject of this article, is still incredibly bullish on physical-digital ("phygital") linked products.

Anybodies x Tay Keith Redeemable-Enabled Sweater

By working with partners to launch phygital products, Anybodies is able to provide customers an added benefit with each product they purchase; one that incentives them to play a new game, subscribe to a brand's rewards program, etc. The power that Anybodies has by positioning itself as the mesh between physical products and their linked "digital twin" is that the project can now direct user traffic to the highest bidder willing to pay to acquire that customer. If we break it down, the Anybodies platform is, in a way, aiming to be a new-age blockchain-powered version of Google Ads where companies are able to bid for access to new potential users. Here's how it works in practice:

Imagine purchasing a giraffe toy from Toys "R" Us for a child. The toy comes with a linked digital twin, making the product a "redeemable-enabled product," as Elli calls it. The digital twin is an NFT that could be used for any number of things, including in-game use across games with economies powered by the Anybodies Platform. Upon tapping/scanning the giraffe to gain access to the digital twin, the purchaser is brought to a web3-powered video game that enables players to use the digital giraffe as an avatar.

"If Anybodies is onboarding millions of users into these games, we're in a very strong position in Web3. Ultimately gaming plays a big part of this narrative of NFTs being successful. When gaming succeeds, we'll be at the forefront at that."

Across its different partners, Anybodies plans on eventually releasing millions of these redeemable-enabled products yearly, and the team will generate revenue with its ability to decide where purchasers are led upon tapping/scanning the product. It all comes back to user acquisition. Any company will have the ability to bid on redeemable-enabled products, with the winners being able to direct purchasers of the products to their game, website, virtual experience, content, social media page, etc.

Notably, bids will be in the Anybodies STYLE token, establishing a clear use case and buying pressure for the token that powers the entire Anybodies ecosystem.

The Path to Global Prominence Runs Through Web2

In 2023, only about 6,000 unique purchasers are interacting with NFTs on any given day. That is a tiny audience. To scale a globally relevant company from within web3 and become a household name, there simply isn't a large enough consumer base to leverage—teams must look beyond the confines of web3 and work to solve problems that everyone, not just NFT fanatics, can relate to. Although this growth path is entirely logical, Anybodies is one of the only web3-native projects actually prioritizing it with a real product designed to cater to a widespread, global audience.

"The vision is there. The product is there. The overall goal here is to become the bridge of Web2 into Web3 in a very seamless way that's familiar."

The entire Anybodies platform, from the ground up, has been developed with "normies" (people unfamiliar with crypto, web3, etc.) in mind. According to Elli, this took rethinking the crypto narrative at every level of the project, and part of the inspiration to do so came from one of their 2022 drops.

Anybodies NFT Rewards Platform — Visit the platform at Anybodies.io

When Anybodies launched their Tay Keith collaboration drop, the main feedback they received was that Tay Keith didn't post much about it. Why didn't he? The Anybodies team realized that Tay Keith's audience isn't a bunch of crypto-natives. If he told his fans to go create a wallet and stake their NFTs to earn rewards, no one would have a clue what he's talking about. This realization, among many others acquired by deeply considering the needs of regular people around the world, led to a number of key features being implemented into the Anybodies platform:

"Staking" is now "Subscribing"
Magic Wallet is being used to enable users to log in with a phone number, email, etc. This solves the friction that web3 wallets add to user experiences integrated with blockchain technology.
When users claim rewards, they'll be able to save them to their Apple or Google wallets.
A subscriptions tab is on the left-hand side of the platform like YouTube, something everyone will be familiar with.
There will be a marketplace element to the platform that will be able to speak to a Shopify store and Salesforce because "most of the world uses Salesforce, or Shopify, or WordPress, so why reinvent the wheel?"

These types of features contribute greatly to providing a seamless experience for people, most of whom won't even realize blockchain transactions are occurring while using the platform.

How Do Anybodies OG NFTs Fit into the Equation?

At their core, a large percentage of NFTs in existence are simply membership tokens. Unlike digital art and NFT-powered gaming assets, these NFTs derive their value from what owners gain by holding them.

In this category of NFT, we’ve only just begun to see the surface scratched. The overwhelming majority of NFT holder utility has been very cookie-cutter in nature. Holders gain access to a new NFT collection, can stake their NFTs for a utility token, are permitted entrance into parties, etc. It's very underwhelming when we think about the real-world value being provided, especially when considering the top projects that have raised tens of millions of dollars. With the Anybodies Platform now live, the Anybodies OG collection (current floor price: 9 SOL, ~ $180) is ready to rise above the rest and demonstrate the true power of holder rewards.

"Anybodies holders will have the most powerful subscription program out there because we have access to all these rewards and features."

Once in a more mature form, the Anybodies Platform will be bringing millions of people into the Solana ecosystem daily and host the rewards programs of brands from around the world. While other NFTs integrated with the Anybodies Platform will provide utility that is specific to their ecosystem/community, Anybodies OG NFTs will act as somewhat of an all-access pass and have the power to earn rewards from across the entire ecosystem.

Imagine Lil Wayne activates on the Anybodies Platform and decides to give out free concert tickets to his most loyal, highest-tier fans. While the exact mechanics haven't been fully confirmed, in theory, holding an Anybodies OG could enable you to skip the line and become the highest tier automatically. Concert tickets secured! That goes for other Anybodies Platform-powered subscriptions as well, whether it be (hypothetically) Lululemon, Yeezy, Uber, MrBeast, etc.

"It could be that this partnership is launching 10,000 very collectible sneakers and they're doing it through our Rewards Engine. We'll say part of that cost is that 10% needs to be reserved for us to do our own marketing, and that goes to you guys [holders]. There are so many ways for us to do cool shit, it's literally limitless. 2023's big focus is retail and music."

It is undeniable. No other NFT in the world is providing holders this level of utility. The future of the project, and the Solana ecosystem along with it, has never been brighter.

Learn More

This article was inspired by the Twitter Spaces hosted by the Anybodies team upon the launch of the Anybodies Platform. Below is an overview of timestamps that you can use to learn more about any topic you've just read about and more.

5:25 - Anybodies Platform video background
5:45 - Introduction to the high-level of the release
6:15 - Rethinking the crypto narrative to onboard "normies"
9:30 - Platform design inspiration
10:25 - The ultimate goal of Anybodies and platform release phases
11:20 - Apple and Google Pay
12:50 - The Rewards Engine is a fully platformized solution
13:25 - Interoperability of permissionless rewards
14:00 - Anybodies gaming
15:15 - The vision for onboarding users to platform partners with phygital products
17:25 - Exclusive distribution channels for Anybodies holders
17:50 - Anybodies gaming position and esports acquisition
18:50 - Roblox integration for Toys "R" Us NFTs
19:30 - How STYLE token fits into the ecosystem
21:55 - Google Ads analogy and how Anybodies is the source of new users
23:35 - Onboarding users to STYLE to increase holder count
24:30 - Potential change to STYLE token name

25:15 - Q&A begins

25:40 - Will there be an Anybodies marketplace?
28:15 - What are the use cases of the digital twin of physical products?
29:30 - Where does the buy pressure come for STYLE?
34:40 - Are burning mechanics being used?
35:25 - Is there going to be a wallet integrated into the website, and is the asset in your Apple Wallet linked to an NFT?
38:43 - How much STYLE will Toys "R" Us NFTs get via subscribing?
40:00 - Will STYLE be purchasable on the platform?
41:52 - Can you speak to the Anybodies holders affiliate program?
43:26 - Are there any benefits not available on the site if you do not own an Anybodies NFT?

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