Azuki Founder: Underestimated Community Sentiment Overestimated Product Delivery

Azuki's disaster release issues are still unresolved, and price fluctuations across all sets remain wild. In the early morning of June 30th, Christian, a major player in the Azuki series, who is also the founder of NDV Fund and ManesLAB co-creator, had a long conversation with Zaga, the founder of Azuki, in a conference call. The big investor who had intended to bid $40 million for Azuki shared the conversation with BlockBeats. In summary, the Azuki team underestimated the sentiment of the community and overestimated their own capabilities. They don't want to do things that make money, and they don't want to sell the company.

**BlockBeats: The founder of Azuki should have talked a lot during the conference call. What everyone is most concerned about is actually two points, one is why such a catastrophic mistake occurred, and the other is the solution. Let's first look at why it happened? Did Zaga say why the picture is almost the same as the OG version, and why set a high price of 2 ETH? **

Christian: On the phone with Azuki founder Zaga last night, we talked about the cause of this incident and the current state of the team. The reasons for the consequences of this disaster can be divided into several parts. The first is that the sale price is too high. The Azuki team initially thought that this price was actually quite reasonable. Based on the price of OG Azuki at that time and the sentiment and market performance of the community, they did not realize that the price of 2 eth is actually in the current macro market. It's hard to bear,

The second is that the 10-minute release time given to Holders during the auction is too short, resulting in many Holders not being mint. Zaga admitted this mistake more sincerely, saying that the team had some discussions and differences at that time, but finally decided to proceed according to this gap time. He didn't give a specific reason, I guess maybe they think that Azuki's Holder will not be mint, so including the price, he said that it should enter the public sale in anticipation, and the price will be lowered through the Dutch auction , but did not expect such an enthusiastic response, it was sold out in an instant.

To sum up, I think the main reason for this crisis is that Azuki underestimated the expectations of the community, and at the same time overestimated the products he delivered. I personally think that the Elementals series actually has some remarkable points in the production. Some of the pictures are of good quality, but of course the most criticized one is that they are too similar to the OG pictures. There is no such distinction, which will damage the community interests. This is something that the team did not consider before, and also admitted that they will use a series of means to distinguish in the future, so as to better meet everyone's expectations and positioning for different series.

**BlockBeats: Any thoughts from the team on currently viable solutions in this session? I read some news that the pictures may be changed to make Elementals and OG different. **

Christian: The current map change plan may be the final decision of the team. During the exchange yesterday, Zaga emphasized that the core is to highlight the key points of OG Azuki. He also mentioned that OG Azuki must be the most core series in the community , belonging to the topmost identity.

He believes that the Azuki series represents a very cool member attribute, and may also provide more benefits to OG Azuki in the future. The team's solution may be to do some processing in terms of recognition, and give priority to Azuki in terms of points and other rights and interests, so as to appease OG Holder's emotions.

**BlockBeats: You tweeted that the $40M purchase price was too cheap, is it Zaga's take on that price, or does it sound like Azuki is worth much more than $40M? **

Christian: Yesterday I also clarified that the price of 40 million US dollars is definitely not available. According to the communication yesterday, Zaga will not have any intention to sell the brand, and this incident is not a deliberate act for the purpose of rug or money. The reason is still as mentioned above, they overestimate their ability and the quality of their delivery. I tweeted that $40 million was too cheap, not that Zaga offered a higher price, but that he had no intention of selling the company at all. Because there are a lot of core contributors in the Red Bean Chinese community around me, everyone is very depressed now, and many of them have begun to change their attitudes. I brought up this situation with Zaga, and he also apologized during the exchange, admitting that the previous princess And other core Builder's contribution to the brand, also mentioned that in the future, it will pay more attention to the Asian and Chinese markets and communities, and will continue to hold offline activities in Asia this year. I hope this gives the community some confidence.

**BlockBeats: What other key points do you think can be shared with you in this meeting? **

Christian: We also talked about the development direction of Beanz. As the largest Beanz Holder, I candidly say that I am a little disappointed with the current progress of Beanz. Zaga said that in their conception, Beanz and Azuki are separate, and the two routes are relatively independent. Beanz this year focuses on the cooperation with Line, as well as the ongoing incubation of some physical dolls similar to penguins and surrounding areas, which have already In the process of production and operation, but did not disclose too many details before.

He is also very optimistic about Beanz, and even thinks that in terms of IP, the potential of this image may be greater than that of Azuki. He said that compared to Azuki's focus on becoming a unique and rare status symbol, Beanz's image is cute enough and more accessible, and can be used as a cartoon for large-scale publicity, reaching groups such as children, which is also their goal and expectation. He also mentioned that Beanz will play a more important role in Azuki's world view in the future.

Finally, he also emphasized that Azuki will not only operate IP in the Web2 mode in the future, but he has different ideas on how to combine IP with Web3 concepts and technologies, hoping to subvert the traditional IP operation mode, and animation production is also on the way. In progress.