Four Giraffes Walk Into a Bar
Why the long neck? Big updates from GG Headquarters & The Grateful Bus!
Happy Sunday to all of you Grateful Giraffes out there! After a wild few weeks on the road, things are only about to get more exciting! Let’s get caught up :)
Fundraising & NFT Sale Updates
Back in February when we launched Grateful Giraffes, we decided to forgo the traditional VC route and offer early supporters an opportunity to pre-purchase Grateful Giraffe NFTs in batches of 10 as a way to bootstrap our initial community and funding. We’re grateful to have sold more than 850 Giraffes to 70 community members in exchange for 85 ETH which has allowed us to finance everything from legal & operations, to marketing, community management, art, and development.
As we approached our public mint date, June 21st, World Giraffe Day, we asked ourselves, “What’s more important? Selling out our Giraffes publicly on June 21st, or building an even stronger, more conscious community of initial Giraffe holders who share our ethos & believe strongly in the cultural shift we are trying to create?”
We get cold approached daily by NFT influencers who want to promote our project to their followers. We could easily pay $10,000 to have an influencer shill our Giraffes and sell out on June 21st, but we are here to build a sustainable, long-lasting community. The initial 200-300 community members will define the culture & vibe for the next 7,000, so it’s important to get that right before launching our collection publicly.
With this in mind, we’ve decided to expand our private sale. Out of the 7,777 total Giraffes; 3,500, including the 850 already purchased, will be sold privately in batches of 10 for 1 ETH, and we will open a new public mint date on September 21st, World Gratitude Day, where the final 3,500 giraffes will be auctioned publicly to those who have secured a spot on our Whitelist. On June 21st, we’ll reveal all of the Giraffes that have been minted privately, and continue to reveal them as the private sale continues. The only way to get into the private sale is through an invitation from one of our existing community members; this is how we grow the community organically and stay true to our mission.
The remaining 10% of the supply is reserved for the founding team, advisors, gratitude ambassadors, service providers, early supporters, strategic partners, investors, and Giraffles. Half will be released on June 21st, the other half on September 21st.
In parallel, we’re raising a small pre-seed round, offered initially to private sale participants and strategic angels, and this capital will allow us to concentrate on building a high quality community, the House of Gratitude, The Grateful Market, and our first wellness retreat, coming in the Fall of this year in Kenya!
The Gratitude Boost
Since our last newsletter, we had the honor of hosting Marc Champagne, Ashlee Braxton, and Erin Doppelt to lead our community meditations and made the move back to Zoom to ease user experience with sign-ups & breakout rooms.
Tomorrow at 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST we’re hosting Emily Kessler from The Big Quiet, the largest mass meditation movement in the U.S to lead our Gratitude Boost. If you haven’t registered yet and are feeling spontaneous, here’s the registration link! It’s 25 minutes of self-care and positivity to infuse into the beginning of your week.
Next Monday, May 30th, same time same place, we will have the pleasure and honor of hosting Chester Elton, one of the most influential leaders in the field of corporate culture & gratitude in the workplace. Space is limited to 100 participants – so reserve your spot in advance here.
The Grateful Bus
Within 24 hours of arriving in Miami (can’t believe it was two weeks ago!) we were happily greeted by two more of our team members, Teeny & Mikayla, who flew in to help us make the most of our time in Southern Florida. We sponsored the iconic Miami Tech Happy Hour with Chris Adamo who invited his wonderful community to write on the bus throughout the night.
The next morning, Max and Adar flew to Mexico to meet GG’s Community Builder Julian at Tulum’s first crypto conference, where we built yet another Gratitude Wall, led a Gratitude Boost for 60 attendees, gave a lecture about how NFTs can elevate collective well-being, and sat on a panel to discuss the future of Grateful Giraffes. Julian will be staying in Tulum the next two months, so if you’ll be in town reach out to him at Julian@gratefulgiraffes.com.
In parallel, the team back in Miami curated a round of Saturday wellness activities for the Grateful Bus Tour around Upper Buena Vista & South Beach. Early Sunday morning, the team took the bus to the Miami Triathlon to give the hard-working athletes an opportunity to share their gratitude on the bus.
Once back in Miami, we threw a meet and greet event at the Crypto Corridor with local Miami Ukranian fan favorite & Metaverse DJ, Joolia, spinning next to The Grateful Bus, before heading to West Palm Beach to spread gratitude and capture some shares at Permissionless, the world’s largest DeFi & NFT conference sponsored by Blockworks & Coinbase.
We met some amazing new community members and invited them to join our Private Mint of Giraffe NFTs before rolling up Saturday night to an RV park only 10 minutes walking from the French Quarter in New Orleans. We had quite a time on Bourbon Street dressed as Giraffes, spreading love and gratitude with people from all walks of life. Still learning how this incredible vehicle works, we blew out the battery and relied on the support of strangers to jump the bus as we headed due west, arriving in Austin a few hours ago to start the week off with some of that Texas twang.
This week we will be in Austin, Texas Monday and Tuesday. Then we’ll head out to Phoenix, LA, and San Diego to post up in SoCal and spread gratitude in many communities along the way. We’re looking forward to our first private dinner party on June 5th where we will host 20-25 influential figures for a gratitude themed evening. If you’re in LA / San Diego and want to meet up DM us on Instagram or Twitter!
If you’re excited about what we’re building and want to help us make gratitude practices go viral using modern technology, we’d love for you to share our Substack newsletter with your friends & family. If you have any questions / ideas, please reach out to us directly at love@gratefulgiraffes.com. See you at the next boost!