Interested in Launching a Guild on NEAR? Take a Tip From Swine Guild – NEAR Ecosystem Veterans
Swine Guild launched in the first wave of NEAR Guild launches, with the purpose of bringing high quality memes into the NEAR Ecosystem. In spite of technical difficulties, the two Swine co-founders – CoyoteFugly and Sue D’Nimm put on a show in their presentation of what a meme guild on NEAR might look like.
Roughly a month later, the NEAR Ecosystem is checking back in with the Swine guild to get an inside look at how Swine guild has become so successful, how they approach their Guild, and what they see in the future for Swine and the rest of the NEAR Guilds!
For new guilds looking to launch on NEAR, and existing guilds looking at an example of growth, the Swine Guild provides a clear cut example of crypto-community entrepreneurship at its finest.
An Inside Look At Swine Guild: Motivations and Future Ambitions
Swine Guild started, on a serious note for a satirical topic: To create memes for the NEAR Ecosystem. Like many other L1’s the NEAR Ecosystem is a blossoming smart contract platform, competing for space in the crypto-verse, amongst many other highly productive projects.
Where did the idea come from to start Swine Guild?
“We had been in the NEAR Ecosystem for a few months working with 4NTS Guild on some Odd Jobs accumulating NEAR, and we realized that the Meme Game was pretty weak for NEAR. Just by looking on Twitter we realized that the internet presence in general was lacking in dank memes for NEAR and especially memes that actually explained products and projects and facets of NEAR that we felt were really significant.”
And why did you choose memes as a form of communication of NEAR and its larger Ecosystem?
“We are both experienced Meme smiths and we saw this as an opportunity for us to contribute to the NEAR community and our love language. And we think that the best crypto projects tend to have really, really good meme communities. It’s a way of driving culture and community engagement. We want to make NEAR memes preeminent in crypto through swine guild.”
How do you approach growing or scaling up Swine Guild?
“The big key word here is Scale – Up. Because we are trying to build something that is sustainable, and as a decentralized community we want to build something that can stand on its own. At the beginning we are starting with a very modest budget and it is just us founders, and we wanted to make sure that we can do a good job in the basics – laying a foundation for future growth.
Every month we want to do a scale up that includes making memes for more and more of the community. We realized that Guilds are a results based project and they are supposed to serve a purpose, and we want to make sure that every scale up can be justified through deliverables. In general, we are trying to balance between ambition and long-term sustainability and we realize that substantive projects aren’t built overnight.”
How is it getting paid in $NEAR? Was it an adjustment from traditional fiat?
“The success of NEAR is dependent on the results of our guild to some extent. We want to contribute to not only make the ecosystem better, but also because we have a staked interest in this project. The incentives are aligned and we want NEAR to win. Getting paid in NEAR is a matter of sweat equity in the protocol.”
The founders added:
“We understand that NEAR is extremely undervalued and that plays into our long-term goal of accumulating of what we believe is a going to be a 20 or maybe 50$ token in the long term. Obviously we have expenses and we want to create a budget that is realistic now, but we don’t really see it as a two dollar token now.”
And in terms of future prospects for the token? There seems to be momentum with NEAR:
“Once you get into the Ecosystem you start to see how much is going on, and how much value is being developed and that narrative is very powerful. We are extremely bullish because we are so familiar with the ecosystem and have watched it grow into what it is. We have confidence in the token based upon our confidence in the team and community.”
Moving beyond Swine Guild itself, what Advice Would You Give To New or Prospective Guild Leaders About This New World?
“The most important part of any enterprise – especially in crypto – is clear communication – because everybody is shooting for the same goal. Being transparent about what you need, what you expect, and what you offer removes a lot of unnecessary anxiety.”
This of course, has to be backed up by production:
“Production at the end of the day is supreme. Communication is important when problems arise, but the best way to have a happy guild is to execute. Show don’t tell. And stick around. So basically plan for the long haul and plan on executing routinely.”
And perhaps to some small extent, that also depends on the nature of the Guild in question:
“We are lucky in Swine Guild insofar as we work with a very product based and tangible item – memes. Our outcomes are extremely tangible — and we know it’s a good week if we can get 12 to 15 memes a week out the door. This whole creator economy – influencers, meme artists, etc. they understand the trickiness of this endeavour. We need to think on variety, content, format, and ecosystem interests all the time.”
How Do You Explain What You Do To People Who Don’t Understand Crypto? Are Memes Here To Stay?
“Memes are here to stay and they have been around since their genesis. They rule. It’s an art form – and like art insofar as it evolves over time to new situations and circumstances and even technologies. You can make memes about anything.
That being said: The way I usually explain if people don’t understand what a crypto is, I say that we use memes to market and educate the community and the larger space. To reach more people and to make it more accessible. A lot of people have been able to understand more with the help of memes. So in essence, I say we are early stage educators of NEAR and Crypto.
Sue added:
“I have explained it as Memes for instruments of exponential growth, and when you are working in the crypto space anything short of exponential growth is usually a bad sign. The very premise of a meme is this element that gets shared widely and uncontrollably. In a marketing and education context they are invaluable. Especially on the internet.”
Any last things, you would like to Tell Us a About Yourselves Personally?
“We love horror movies- we fuck with spirits, but not ghosts. We learned a lot nomading it with 4NTS guild this last year – we almost got stuck in Asia because we messed up the ferry registration back to Europe. Belgian beers slap. We don’t understand sharding – and that’s okay.
To stay up to date with Swine Guild follow them on Twitter or put a request in on their website!
