Pudgy Penguins CEO says praise he gets ‘is actually pretty sad’: NFT Creator
Pudgy Penguins minted in July 2021, but quickly saw high drama after its former founder came under suspicion he was going to rug the project.
A few months later Luca Schnetzler stepped in. With an entrepreneurial streak since his early teens he had a history of building internet businesses and bought the project and its intellectual property of 8,888 cute little Pudgys for $2.5 million in April 2022.
“It was an instinct and intuitive decision. I saw this thing that I was hugely invested in before I bought it that I thought had all of the potential. I was complaining and crying on a daily basis to the founders about how they sucked, and how they could do better. Rather than just doing that, I just stepped up to the plate,” Schnetlzer says.
The narrative of quickly shifted from a rug that could trend to zero to one of hope and optimism when Schnetzler set out a vision for the project the community could rally behind.
Schnetzler became one of the standout PFP project leaders during the NFT bear market, and the Penguins bucked the trend of cratering floor prices. Since he took over as CEO, the Pudgy Penguins floor has risen from around the 1 ETH mark to 6.32 ETH. Holders and the wider NFT community believe that Schnetzler has a game plan for success and the ability to execute it.
He says the decision to snap the project up wasn’t as risky as it may have seemed.
“We bought something that netted almost $10 million in six months for $2.5 million. Royalties were making it half a million dollars per month. It was a pretty good business on its face. Intuitively, I think it just comes down to the vision when you close your eyes and you picture Pudgy Penguins, it’s pretty easy to see where this thing can go.”
Constant momentum and growth has been key to Pudgy’s ascent into one of the top PFP projects, with the cute penguin brand spreading across social media outside of traditional crypto channels like X and Discord. Pudgy’s Instagram has just crossed 1 million followers, while its GIF strategy has been highly effective, only days ago crossing the 10 billion views chasm.
Schnetzler thinks it’s a little bit sad that he gets such praise, when it just highlights how little effort other PFP projects put into trying to grow their brands.
“Everyone’s been saying that their NFT project is a brand, they have hundreds of millions of dollars that they raised from the community and venture capital at ridiculous valuations. Yet none of them are actually doing the basics of building a brand,” he says.
“Some people really sing my praises, and it’s actually pretty sad because I do think we do some things really well, don’t get me wrong, but I mean, this should have been the bar all along. The fact that we are doing so many things that so many projects are not doing when they have 10-20 times the resources and 2-3 times the experience is pretty shameful.”
Finding the entrepreneurial spirit
Despite only being 25 years old, Schnetzler actually started his entrepreneurial journey over a decade ago. Growing up poor and bouncing around couch to couch at friends’ places, Schnetzler says he needed to start earning at a young age.
“I’ve really been out of school working for 10 years and it’s pretty crazy to say, but that’s what it’s been,” he says, noting most people don’t even start working until they finish college in their 20s
“Then you do 10 years after you leave college and you’re 33, and then people start to see success in their 30s. That seems to be the time horizon. I think my childhood forced me to start early. I didn’t have the luxury of chilling out or having a childhood where I could just go home and play video games and not worry about anything. I was forced to go work and figure things out.”
Character building versus brand building
To date, most PFP projects are built around a centralized character with a variety of different traits to give each NFT a slightly different look and feel. Take the OG collection CryptoPunks, the Bored Apes, and it is also true for the Pudgys. But it’s not the case for Gary Vee’s VeeFriends, which boasts 270 individual characters.
Schnetzler believes character building around one individual character is the easier of the two options.
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“At the end of the day, I think Gary is trying to tackle a tougher challenge. It’s part of the cards I was dealt and have, and he created his cards. I think he’s doing a great job with VeeFriends. I think ultimately he has to create familiarity. Creating familiarity around a character is a lot easier than creating familiarity around a brand,” says Schnetzler.
“They’re two different things and because his universe isn’t predicated on one character, but a multitude of different characters and different animals in different shapes. He is betting and taking a shot at the brand, and the brand name versus the character.”
“I’m going after the character first and then worrying about the brand because I believe there’s enough people that love penguins and few enough penguin brands out there.”
A brave new world – Walmart pallet program
In September this year, Pudgys announced a groundbreaking deal with retail giant Walmart that saw Pudgy Penguin physical toys available for sale and in prominent locations in over 2,000 stores throughout the U.S.
“The pallet program is one of the most prestigious places you can get because it gives prime real estate to people walking the floor. It signals Walmart’s belief in the brand and their belief in NFTs and Web3 being a vertical for their retail locations,” says Schnetzler.
“If that can become a general norm in the world’s biggest retailer it gives us a real shot to succeed. It’s one thing to be in the crevices of the toy shelf, it’s another thing to be front and center for everyone to see. That program doesn’t happen for brand-new brands. It’s normally a program for Barbie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or people that have movies and TV shows off the backs of their releases.”
Building a legacy brand with no playbook
One of the most common questions consistently thrown at a PFP project is “how do you drive value back to holders?”
In response to criticism about its toy product extension, Schnetzler laid out his plan on how Pudgy Penguins are thinking about value accrual to holders using a classic funnel diagram.
“The funnel is not something that I’ve really invented. I mean, you can throw Star Wars and any other big legacy IP onto that funnel, and that’s the strategy. The idea, though, with NFTs is the value of the first edition collectible is a huge anchor to the business. If you put any first edition collectible at any legacy brand on the bottom of that funnel, it still makes the most sense,” he says.
“I want to build a legacy brand, the likes of a Hello Kitty, a Star Wars and a Pokemon.
That’s easier said than done, he admits, saying there’s no roadmap to follow for a PFP project.
“Hello Kitty took 60 years to build. My holders don’t have 60 years for me to go build something. If I lose momentum and traction within the holder base, then I ultimately lose everything because I don’t believe you can build a successful Web2 business while your Web3 business fails.”
Rapid-fire Q&A
Your entrepreneurial inspiration
“I love everything that I think Steve Jobs represents. For me personally, I’ve tried to be my own man, but the one person that I found huge inspiration from, you can kind of tell it in my leadership style, is really Steve Jobs.”
The intense pressure of a founder
“It’s not easy, but it’s also not the worst thing. One of the reasons why we got here is because of the community. I think I’m in a great situation because I bought the project and I didn’t take any money from them. The nature of people who hold Pudgy Penguin PFPs, they’re good people.”
Read also
“You can’t really be an angry, miserable person and then go click buy on a Pudgy Penguin. The art kind of creates a culture that already filters a lot of that nonsense out. Now, I empathize with a lot of other people who I see go through the chaos.”
What you would tell a Mom about Pudgys
“What I would tell a Mom is, ‘hey, this is a great value proposition for your son or daughter. This is way more fun than any other $10 toy.’”
“Why? Because they unlock a bunch of things in the digital world that not only entertain them when they go to bed or when they’re at recess or on the playground. But also entertains them when they are at home on their iPad and computer. It’s a 2-for-1 bang for buck special.”
Were the Pudgy gifs planned?
“The gifs were totally random. But the second we saw it, we quadrupled down, but it was totally random in the beginning. It was a sheer accident but a happy accident.”
“I don’t need people to know about Pudgy Penguins now, but you want to know something when NFTs are the talk of the town again, and all those people have been using Pudgy gifs the whole time, that’s going be a really good source of credibility for them once everyone starts to want to buy NFTs.”
What’s your position on royalties?
“It shouldn’t be 0% and it shouldn’t be 5%. I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I think the number is between 1% and 1.5% is where I think the enforceable royalty should stand. The reason being is because you just have to incentivize the creator. [That’s] what made YouTube great, what made TikTok great.”
Are you a Wim Hof fanboy?
“Every day I do his breathing technique and I get high doing it. I recommend it because it’s the quickest way you can get high for free. I’m also setting up my cold plunge now.”
Where are Pudgys three years from now?
“We’re the face of NFTs, we’re the face of Web3. We have brought the most value to holders emotionally and fiscally. Three years from now we’re probably launching a movie. The movie is close.”
Links:
Website: http://www.pudgypenguins.com
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Politics
‘Shameful’ that black boys in London more likely to die than white boys, says Met Police chief
It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.
The commissioner told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that relations with minority communities “is difficult for us”.
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.
“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”
He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.
However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said it is “not right” that black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.
The Met Police chief’s admission comes two years after an official report found the force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
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Police chase suspected phone thief
Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found that stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.
At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Casey insisted the Met deserved.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.
After the report was released, Sir Mark said “institutional” was political language so he was not going to use it, but he accepted “we have racists, misogynists…systematic failings, management failings, cultural failings”.
A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.
Labour’s largest union donor, Unite, has voted to suspend Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row.
Members of the trade union, one of the UK’s largest, also “overwhelmingly” voted to “re-examine its relationship” with Labour over the issue.
They said Ms Rayner, who is also housing, communities and local government secretary, Birmingham Council’s leader, John Cotton, and other Labour councillors had been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”.
There was confusion over Ms Rayner’s membership of Unite, with her office having said she was no longer a member and resigned months ago and therefore could not be suspended.
But Unite said she was registered as a member. Parliament’s latest register of interests had her down as a member in May.
Politics latest: Italy and other EU countries have ‘huge doubts’ about legality of UK migrant deal
The union said an emergency motion was put to members at its policy conference in Brighton on Friday.
Unite is one of the Labour Party’s largest union donors, donating £414,610 in the first quarter of 2025 – the highest amount in that period by a union, company or individual.
The union condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the government for “attacking the bin workers”.
Mountains of rubbish have been piling up in the city since January after workers first went on strike over changes to their pay, with all-out strike action starting in March. An agreement has still not been made.
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Rat catcher tackling Birmingham’s bins problem
Ms Rayner and the councillors had their membership suspended for “effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000”, the union added.
‘Missing in action’
General secretary Sharon Graham told Sky News on Saturday morning: “Angela Rayner, who has the power to solve this dispute, has been missing in action, has not been involved, is refusing to come to the table.”
She had earlier said: “Unite is crystal clear, it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette.
“Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Piles of rubbish built up around Birmingham because of the strike over pay
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the government’s “priority is and always has been the residents of Birmingham”.
He said the decision by Unite workers to go on strike had “caused disruption” to the city.
“We’ve worked to clean up streets and remain in close contact with the council […] as we support its recovery,” he added.
A total of 800 Unite delegates voted on the motion.
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