HypeSaints: Insights into Winning MOOAR Season 1

As the first-ever winner of MOOAR’s Launchpad, HypeSaints has proven its potential with a current floor price ranging from 0.3 to 0.4 ETH.

We got the opportunity to hear from Lil Bay, one of the founding members of HypeSaints during the recent MOOAR bootcamp, where he conducted a sharing for aspiring creators. Today, we delve into their story.

Background

HypeSaints, a project by Portal Studio, boasts a team with over 10 years of experience in the entertainment industry, particularly in gaming and arts. The founders, including Roy who worked on Triple A games like League of Legends and Temple Run, brought their complementary skills to the table, covering areas such as development, operations, and content creation.

Futurebot, in charge of the design work for HypeSaints, hailed from a multi-national creative team, with extensive background in creating animation IPs for the likes of Disney, Alibaba, and Cartoon Network. Having lived and worked in France and the UK for years, Futurebot brings to the team his innovative thinking, fashion-sense and wittiness.

The Start

With a mission to put ownership in the hands of users instead of companies, HypeSaints aims to stand out in the competitive NFT space.

They envision bringing value to holders through Non-Fungible Stories (NFS), the Web3 equivalent of video game cartridges, allowing holders to access specific data or stories among different NFS.

They have broken down their journey into 4 main parts:

Conceptualisation

The team identified their inspirations, such as the 80s era, and merged them into the HypeSaints concept. The project features two factions: the rebellious and individualistic Hipster Alliance, and the conglomerate-representing Bubble Gang.

Understanding the market

HypeSaints conducted market research on existing NFT projects, including their themes, visuals, and narratives. For instance, pixelated art like CryptoPunks, or the more abstract styles of BAYC.

Differentiation

The team decided to differentiate themselves by emphasising the narrative aspect of their project and leveraging their storytelling skills.

Release Schedule

They planned the launch, including the quantity, platform, price, and roadmap. This was particularly important to ensure that not only logistics, but also marketing efforts were ready for the actual launch.

The Launch

HypeSaints went all out in their marketing efforts to win the voting phase on MOOAR. They aimed to be the first announced participant, held AMAs to provide clear information, and hosted activities to reward early adopters. They also promoted the project through KOLs and influencers and focused on branding to leave a lasting impression.

A couple of notable focuses:

Maintaining Interest

• Hosted activities leading up to the launch (i.e. Hypecoins — used to enhance your HypeSaints PFP. This was a good way to reward early users)
• Proactive communication with users to update them on voting procedures, developments leading up to the launch.

Promotions

• Clearly defined promotion objectives
• Only sourced KOLs who were willing to promote the project
• Promotions focused on providing clear expectations from the mint and incentivising minting (this shows sincerity in building the project)

Branding

• HypeSaints, being the first product for Portal Studio, is the most important to cement the public’s perception
• Visuals, narrative and product should be unified to build a lasting impression

Post-Launch

When the launch concluded, there was a lot more work that needed to be done, such as:

Review

Evaluated the difference between their target audience and actual users and worked with the community to prioritise aspects of their roadmap.This involved a lot of process optimisation (i.e. not being afraid to make mistakes as long as you learn from it)

Community Building

They showed value to holders by treating them well, hosting exclusive events, and interacting with users to build trust.

Influence Expansion

They worked on deepening their brand style, allocating resources for key releases, and collaborating with other projects to expand reach.

Additional Tips

1. Be patient, especially during a bear market where sentiment and floor prices may take time to improve.
2. Always plan for the worse. You will only get better as you keep trying
3. Stay focused and manage your marketing (Less is more)
4. Pace your goals and ensure that the product design is clear
5. Make an effort to connect with users
6. Carefully consider the collection size — there are downsides to having a collection that is too large, or too small.

Conclusion

While green, HypeSaints remains extremely promising. Having barely launched 2 months ago, they are proving that they can and are putting in the necessary work to reach the top.

By following these tips, aspiring creators can increase their chances of success in the NFT space. However, it is important to remember that the journey is not easy, and requires patience, planning, focus, and a clear vision.

If you are keen to explore creating your own NFT collection, head to the MOOAR website, where we will be closing off the submissions for our Season 2 Launchpad shortly.