Gents Croquet Club - Deep Dive (V 1.0)

Welcome back, folks! For many of you, this will be your first time visiting Morning NFTea. We're a bi-weekly newsletter that reports on recent innovations in the NFT space, and we also break down dope projects. 

We plan to continue covering Gents Croquet Club as this project develops, so please subscribe if you'd like to receive future updates, NFT news, giveaways, and more!

Gents Croquet Club - Deep Dive (V1.0)

In today's edition of Morning NFTea, we are breaking down a very fascinating project - Gents Croquet Club. As exemplified in their motto 'Not Another "Metaverse" Project', GCC sees itself as an outcast compared to most other NFT collections. Thankfully, this is for all the right reasons.  

Today we are going to venture a bit off the beaten path and dissect this project through a framework given to us by the owner of NFTManagement.com, Blake Basuel. Blake recently wrote an article on what makes a good NFT project, in which he stated the 8 most important driving forces (check it out here). Today we will dive into a few of those:

• Founders & Team

• Roadmap & Utility

• Community Engagement

• Mint Price & Supply

As always, this breakdown aims to help people understand exactly how this project works, and the technology behind it.

Side Note: We like to be ultra-transparent here at Morning NFTea. Our founder (Wicky) does own a GCC NFT - primarily for networking purposes. This helped us gather the most accurate info for this project breakdown.

Founders & Team

We will start this deep dive off with a bang by diving right into the team at GCC. This project was founded by Iman Gadzhi, a business professional who started finding success when he was 16 years old. Iman kicked off his business career by building a digital marketing agency (now worth 8 figures), followed by an e-commerce brand, an education platform, a software business, and now this NFT project. Oh, and he also has a YouTube Channel with 407,000 subscribers which he used to document his entire career. Iman is now 22 years old and is still generating cash flow from all these ventures. 

This project is co-founded by a great friend of Iman, Pete Fogden. Respectively, Pete has had his own success through ownership of a marketing agency alongside filming and editing Iman's videos.

It's important to note that Iman & Pete also have several people under them who are helping out with development work and operations at GCC.

Before we dive further into this project, I figured it would be helpful to give some preliminary background information. In simplest terms, the founders at GCC don't idolize the NFT world. They are realists and see straight through 99% of the market, while still appreciating certain aspects of the most elite projects. Their expertise in previous businesses has allowed them to differentiate value from fluff, which is the core thesis of this project and community.

Roadmap & Utility

Ahh... Roadmap & Utility. Undeniably the most important aspect of any NFT project. This has been made very clear over the last few months, which is a driving factor in the downfalls of most projects. Specifically, utility is what GCC believes differentiates itself from most other projects, so let's get into it.

GCC brands itself as a brotherhood of exceptional men who are working towards multiplying their wealth and leveling up. Most members of this community are perceived to be high achievers with extensive networks who can use each other to grow.

So.. What's the utility?

Networking / In-House CRM. The team at GCC built an in-house CRM that allows each member to list who they are, what they do, contact information, etc. Since the community primarily consists of successful entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their networks, this makes doing so much easier.

A Private Research Team. GCC hired a team of market researches/traders who release daily reports covering the best opportunities in the markets, as well as insights to on-chain metrics, market sentiment, technical analysis, and full project reports. This research spans across the crypto / NFT markets, metaverse real estate, crypto gaming, and more.

Board of Advisors. A portion of mint revenue and royalties goes towards hiring guest speakers who are experts in their given field. The speakers share stories on what led to their success and drop valuable insights to help the members grow as individuals.

The Vault. This is an online platform that houses all of GCC's private content. This content primarily consists of their market research reports and wealth creation courses that were created by Iman. Topics covered include social circle building, watch investing, style, fashion, wine & cigar etiquette, crypto investing, and more.

And.. The roadmap?

Well - the founders do like to keep their roadmap quite secretive. Instead of putting a roadmap on their website, they are more focused on taking action and letting the results speak for themselves. That being said, Iman did recently state in a YouTube video (time stamped here) that the next immediate perk for GCC holders will be a virtual concierge service. From the sounds of it, GCC partnered with a 3rd party service that will give holders easier access to private jets, exclusive dinner reservations, delivery services, arranged drivers, and so on. All of this will be made available through an app that is currently being built out.

Aside from that, Iman also mentioned how they will be rolling out an exclusive clothing line which will only be available for GCC members.

Community Engagement

Due to networking being such a valuable utility within GCC, community engagement is certainly important. Simply speaking, more community engagement at GCC means more relationship-building and productive conversations. Since a fair share of holders are part of the community for networking purposes, engagement hasn't been an issue. 

Fun fact - anybody who mints a GCC NFT has to take a 15-minute onboarding call with one of the team members. Throughout this call, relationships are built and the team focuses on gathering feedback based on what you're looking to get out of the community. Once this call is complete, you are admitted to the discord and instructed to write an in-depth introduction about yourself and the ways you can benefit the community. These intros primarily consist of people explaining the businesses they own, the value they can add to the community, hobbies they are interested in, and their socials.

To learn more about the strength of the GCC community, I would highly recommend checking out this killer Twitter thread from @5thChimp.

Mint Price & Supply

GCC minted 975 NFTs on May 30th, 2022 for $4500 USDC each. There is no information as to why this collection was minted in USDC, but it's safe to assume it was to avoid short-term crypto volatility and conversion fees. That being said, this project is still hosted on the Ethereum Blockchain and available on OpenSea.

GCC took their project to market in a very unique fashion. Similar to the onboarding experience, anybody who wanted to mint a GCC NFT had to first apply, and then get on a video call with one of the GCC team members. This was so the team could align with prospective buyers to make sure everybody in the community was a good fit.

It turns out, that there were indeed a few people that didn't fit the GCC criteria. This project is fully doxxed, which means showing your face was a requirement on these calls. On the Strike It Big podcast, you can find Iman telling a story about GCC turning down a big-time E-Sports gamer because he refused to show his face on the call (time stamped here).

Of course, declined applicants could still purchase the NFT on the open market after the mint, but this tactic allowed GCC to curate roughly 80% of their community. Also, anybody who bought the NFT on the open market had to pay far more than the mint price. These stats are backed nicely thanks to a tweet from @andrew_nfx below.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, GCC utilized NFT technology to create a high-end Web3 Gentlemen's Club. By no means are these types of networking clubs a new thing, but they do have some key differentiators when hosted on the blockchain. Unlike an ordinary gentlemen's club, NFTs allow your 'ticket' to the club to actually be an asset with a secondary sale value. Hypothetically speaking (NFA), you could extract value from GCC for 5, 10, or even 20 years and then sell your ticket/NFT to somebody else for a nice profit.

As with anything, this project is certainly not for anyone. GCC is primarily for men that are looking to level up their lives. Most of the members are fascinated by entrepreneurship, investing/trading, cigars, whiskey, and so on. If you're looking to learn more about GCC, we'd encourage you to DYOR and check out these links below:

Gents Croquet Club Website

Gents Croquet Club Twitter

Gents Croquet Club OpenSea

We'd like to personally thank anybody who has made it this far. We're a young company just getting our feet off the ground, so every bit of support is greatly appreciated. If you found value in this article and want future GCC updates alongside a quick digest of the latest NFT news, we would appreciate if you subscribed to our bi-weekly newsletter here.

Until next time,

Wicky & Bucky  

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Article Time Stamps

Published: August 18th, 2022

GCC Floor Price: 5.6 ETH

ETH Price: $1849.54

NFT Price in USD: $10,357.42

DISCLAIMER: 

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.