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00:00:01
What's the use of NFTs ?
133 Plays2 years ago
In this episode we are learning about a high trend subject, the NFTs. What exactly they are and how do they represent data. Where are they used and how you can win some of them by doing sustainable actions via the PozzlePlanet app? Also we are talking about the rippling effect and the social moment effect from the sociologist Thomas Bisballe, co-founder of the PozzlePlanet app. Such an interesting episode with so many different subjects that we are sure that you will love. You can connect with PozzlePlanet app on the link bellow.
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Episode's page https://podcast.changemakerz.org/what-nfts-mean-with-pozzle-planet-cofounder-thomas-bisballe
Produced by Vasilis Skarleas
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Transcript
VinoVest: Investment in Wine
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Go to zinn.ai.genziers2rise.com to receive two months of fee-free investing. Start investing with VinoVest today. This podcast is a Vassaless Scarlett's production. Hello, everyone. I'm Kennedy.
Changemaker-Z: Gen-Z Entrepreneurs
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And I am Vassaless. We run Changemaker-Z, a student-run initiative that aims to empower, educate, and connect Gen-Zers interested in entrepreneurship.
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We interview teenagers with impactful projects and create resources to help you change the world. If they can't do it, so can you. On this podcast, we discuss the logistics of creating different types of projects with Jin Ziers who have already done it. We will leave our social media and website information in the description.
00:01:52
Speaker
Hi, everyone.
Thomas's Transition: From Sociologist to Founder
00:01:53
Speaker
In today's episode, we meet with Thomas Misbele, the co-founder of the Puzzle Planet app, to talk about Puzzle Planet and how your individual actions can make a huge impact. Welcome to the show. So nice to meet you. Hi, guys. Thank you for having me on. Excited to discuss this. I'm so excited to have you. You know, before we start any podcast, I always just like to ask, like, can you tell me about yourself and kind of how you got started with Puzzle Planet?
00:02:20
Speaker
Ooh, how long time did I go? Well, originally I started my career as a sociologist and a researcher and that was kind of my career path for a long time and eventually I ended up starting a PhD nearly 10 years ago around social entrepreneurship and measurement of social impact.
00:02:43
Speaker
But yeah, a couple of months into that program, I got fed up with the kind of like the, I thought I was going to be researcher, but yeah, it didn't really click. And then I ventured out and since then I've been working in management consulting and in the startup world, building different projects, working also with like, innovative finance or
00:03:07
Speaker
Social finance, so how you finance projects for good or sustainability. So that's been kind of my my my angle of working with Puzzle Planet. How did you get started with Puzzle Planet and how did the pandemic impact the foundation of this company? Yeah, we started this company, did journey on this company two years ago when I met my co-father Johanna in Copenhagen. She's originally from Australia and came out of a with a career in wind energy.
00:03:40
Speaker
a software engineer. So that's our journey. And we started building this company together in Copenhagen. But Jo went back to Australia, let me see, in March 2020, when something happened in the world. And she's actually been located there since then. So we've been, for the past nearly two years, we've been building this company fully
00:04:01
Speaker
So I'm a sociologist and she was an aerospace
Puzzle Planet's Development and Pivot
00:04:05
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remote. And right now, we are a team that
00:04:05
Speaker
engineer.
00:04:07
Speaker
is dispersed in Australia, in Spain, in Denmark where I'm sitting, but also we have people coming in our field where we will start working, yeah, in China, basically on all continents right now. So you were building a social impact app called Impactor. What was the original idea and why did you change the app to what is Puzzle Planet today?
00:04:31
Speaker
Puzzle Planet is a pivot. Last year we were working on another and that's kind of where I think we met, or you contacted us in the first instance, was we were building a short form social app called Impactor, built for a community for sustainability. But I would say last summer, something like you said we talked about before we started, NFT's crypto hit
00:04:57
Speaker
kind of landed or hit our project back then like a meteorite and we decided to pivot five months ago into what is now called possible planet.
00:05:10
Speaker
That's awesome. And I kind of I mean, you brought up impactor. And I kind of wanted to just touch on that because like, it was the original like project that was before puzzle planet. And I guess it you know, it kind of failed, would you say? No, not at all. Actually, we were about like three weeks. We were ready to launch. We ran a really successful private beta.
00:05:39
Speaker
which we had like a private beta testing. So we had beta users, we had users for five months and actually we had to, which is really important for consumer app, we had really high retention. So like over 45% of the users, they came back on a 30 day basis, which is kind of, yeah, it's really good. So actually it wasn't because it was a fail, it failed as such. It was more that the mechanics of, we had this idea, like I said, we were hit by crypto. So what we built was a short form video, kind of like,
00:06:09
Speaker
how we built it was kind of like been looking at, okay, what's happening on Instagram, what's happening on TikTok and taking some of these elements and then combining with more elements of Fitbit. So there was a lot of indicators and you can see your progress and also the shows of graph was a bit different. So there was also a leaderboard. So we had this point system in kind of like the idea of the app. So it wasn't just about being a social feed where we're scrolling and looking at people's content, but it's also kind of like a competitiveness or
00:06:39
Speaker
The competition or the game design was that it was about influencing people. So you got awarded or you got points from setting up a video, a video challenge where you and people start copying you. And that's kind of like the whole, I would say, the basis of what we're building is this social diffusion mechanism.
Design Thinking and NFTs Explained
00:06:55
Speaker
While I was reading your CV, I saw that you are a sociologist. And I was like curious, like how is your background in sociology connects with the app's ventures?
00:07:07
Speaker
So my, this now as a startup founder you do anything but I would say my forte or where my ankle is. This is kind of like design thinking and in that my background in sociology and that's kind of like we will go into this but that's kind of what we are building our platforms build around. These kind of like motivational triggers and behavioral change so that's kind of where some of my background comes into play I would say for the most part.
00:07:37
Speaker
All right, so recently, I don't know about you guys, but I just keep hearing the word like NFT going around. Like, can you give us a basic rundown of NFTs?
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's really good. I'll try to make it as short as possible, right? So NFT stands for non-fungible token and something that is fungible is something that can be changed to an equivalent item, right? So you can say a US$5 bill, you can exchange that with another US$5 exchange bill. And that's a fungible token. That's kind of like when you say cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin.
00:08:15
Speaker
I'll give you one Bitcoin and then it's one Bitcoin. So it's kind of the same. There's a set amount of it, but it's still kind of just the same value unit. But then an unfavorable token would be that one of these $5 bills, Banksy, he draws a kind of a sketch on it. And then you have a $5 bill with a Banksy.
00:08:41
Speaker
drawing on it or Andy Warhol. Look at the picture, some artists, they will make this unique and then you have a non-fungible token. So that's kind of what a non-fungible token is, kind of like this protocol, a database that is stored on the blockchain, but it's one-on-one, so it's unique. So somewhere on the blockchain, there's different blockchains, but let's say it's an Ethereum,
00:09:03
Speaker
then there will be a kind of a store of data that's kind of immovable, you can't change it and that will represent kind of like this NFT and this NFT can store any data, right? So what we've seen so far is a lot of like these profile pics and like artwork and also music files and also in-game kind of like skins and games of people and also I think also parts of land inside a lot of like these play to earn games
00:09:32
Speaker
And but in reality and what's really exciting, what really excites me about it, it's also like using it outside, right? So it could be actually become kind of a store, like a proof of ownership for, I don't know, a part of this apartment, right? Instead of having a normal contract there on a piece of paper, it could be an entity, right? I'm curious to learn what's the use of cryptos in today's
Crypto and Social Impact Opportunities
00:09:55
Speaker
world. Do you have any interesting examples of applications for their use?
00:09:59
Speaker
We also saw that these are the opportunities in the crypto space. We really know some might know it, but I think one thing why crypto has been like it has had kind of like a break pool last summer or something like that. We've gone to the NFTs of course around the like the profile pictures and all kind of those utilities, but also
00:10:20
Speaker
And I think a lot of, especially young people, can resonate like the gaming world. So a lot of games started to come online where you had like, especially a game called Axie Infinity that kind of introduced this business model of play to earn. So you had actually now have gaming platforms where you are earning based on your activity, based on London.
00:10:42
Speaker
based on a cryptocurrency or token economy. And I remember one morning I finally received a letter from an investor we were talking to at that point, and he wrote a blog where they said people in the Philippines are surviving the pandemic by playing this game. Do you think influence is playing a dominant role in social media? If you do, how can we use it properly to bring awareness and social impact for good?
00:11:13
Speaker
I think my first thought was, okay, this is a game with a social impact. And since I've been in this space, that's kind of impact the space and it was really interesting, right? And then I start reading and I was just like this play to earn and how actually people were rewarded for their activity. And yeah, playing this game, that was like kind of like a Pokemon game and, and, and earning a living. And I just thought it was incredible and interesting because we've been like,
00:11:36
Speaker
not fighting but kind of figuring out what the business model was. The original business model was an impact that was kind of what you see on all social media. It's kind of like this ad to the business model where you kind of farm attention from the users, right? And then you try to chuck in some ads, either organically by influencers doing it or creators, as they call it now, but influencers basically
00:11:58
Speaker
the plug-in product or it's like these ads that come in automatically generate, right? So that was also kind of what we were figuring out. We had a marketplace for sustainability because that was kind of our niche, this is sustainability content. It's true that sometimes we, the people think that the social media have so many ads and then instead of being with users, sometimes we feel like being the product of them. And like the clients are the companies that are paying for the ads.
00:12:28
Speaker
But the Postal Planet has a different perspective on this. So how does the Postal Planet app go against the idea that users are the product of social networks?
Puzzle Planet: Token-Based Engagement
00:12:38
Speaker
Everybody is getting tired of the ad model. We are getting more and more tired of being the product in some of these social networks. They are free, but we pay with our attention, right? And I think that is also one of some of the feedback and some of the interest we got
00:12:53
Speaker
from some of our early adapters were like, okay, you're building a new social network. This sounds interesting. One, because it was around sustainability, but also the abilities to stop feeding us ads or something like that. So we had this kind of like this tension in our business model. And then this token model came up and just seemed like kind of an interesting area. And we had some downtime during the summer where we were finalizing the impact that app getting it ready to launch.
00:13:19
Speaker
And then we're just, okay, maybe we should introduce a token, like make that part of our game, this impact turn, Kim Blingering, Johanna, my brain. I was like, how can we do this? And we just, maybe we'll just launch the app and then put a token inside it. We needed a payment system. Anyway, we were paying, actually paying creators for the activity based on the leaderboard or on this leaderboard on the in-game or in-app activity. Anyways, we tried to, we talked to some people that were kind of like,
00:13:48
Speaker
like more, way more experienced in like crypto and building and what's called the free and they were just like, yeah, you can you can put a token inside your gate, your existing app. But there's difference between NFTs and like tokens, fungible tokens, which is like a currency like Bitcoin or yeah, anything like that.
00:14:06
Speaker
So it's like, okay. So we actually, like I said, three weeks before launching, we actually took the really tough decision to pull the plug on impactor and then start from scratch because we just see this opportunity of crypto and Web3 as a once in a lifetime opportunity. So what we did is actually instead of launching a platform and then attaching a token, we are doing it the opposite way. We are launching a token and building a platform on top of that.
00:14:35
Speaker
So you keep using the word social movement, like what is it all about? So kind of like our tagline right now is the only digital world built by taking action in the real world. So it is kind of like kind of a metaverse. We always hate that word, but it's recaptured. But anyway, it is kind of like how the main function is. It is a digital space.
00:14:59
Speaker
when you build out by checking action in the real world. So it's still, the mission stays the same. It's about the platform and the community centered around sustainable content, people sharing lifestyle hack things around sustainability by short video. But I would say it has become more hybrid between a social and a mobile game. It is kind of like the journey where you start doing something that looks small
00:15:28
Speaker
and then you start and it gets more and more complex so you might start out with just like okay remember your water bottle or take a join a challenge where you take you put on Spotify and listen to it and take a shower for three minutes on a playlist where all is on three minutes because then you save some water and that will then add up because then you start doing other stuff and what we actually saw in the impact app which is super interesting that that
00:15:51
Speaker
people that came into that were just like, oh, I don't really do a lot of sustainable stuff. But then they start, okay, I can do this, I can do that. I'm doing this already. Well, I'm doing this all the day. And that kind of like becomes this positive feedback loop where you actually, it seems daunting. And it seems really hard. And we're basically the all of us needs to do a lot of it also depending on where you live on Earth, right. But
00:16:16
Speaker
A lot of us has to change, a lot of our like we've been accustomed to and actually also what is deemed as fashionable and like aspirational in our current society. And so we're up against some like behavior is just one of the hardest things to change, right? But it is actually possible and especially if you're motivated in a social setting. Last question. What is the gameplay and the storyline inside your app?
00:16:43
Speaker
So what the gameplay is that each planet in a universe, so instead of arriving in a normal video feed where it starts from videos, you arrive in an astronaut view of the Earth-pipe. So it's kind of like a 3D model.
00:17:00
Speaker
animated world. And then you can zoom in on that. And then it comes with something like a like a smart map or a Snapchat map, right? So you can see videos like attached different places on earth. And the whole thing is that then you can join these videos that you as you couldn't impact the app.
00:17:15
Speaker
you join the channels you add your video and once a set amount of people have added videos to this chain then it will spawn up and become a planet so it will become let's say you set up a challenge around let's eat vegan meals right or cook vegan and then then it becomes the cook vegan planet and once all the land on this planet is is filled with with puzzles or videos of people doing
00:17:40
Speaker
or replicating that action, let's say, bring your water bottle, go to a climate demonstration, show some kind of act of kindness to your neighbor or something like that, like good deeds, right? Then it will get completed and minted an NFT, and then that part of the game, like that mission, or that you can say, yeah, that level is done. And then it's completed and comes an NFT. And the thing is that all the participants in building this NFT will then own this NFT.
00:18:10
Speaker
Alright, so how are people rewarded? People are you are rewarded by ownership of these NFTs, but you're also rewarded with past the post token for adding your your content, right? So that's kind of like rewarded, but at the same time, people can also stake or they can pledge a post token to incentivize people take an action or competing. So if I'm I want to have I'm
00:18:34
Speaker
I've earned some paths doing some other, completing another planet, then maybe I want to see a lot of people do, I don't know, something I care about, of course I care about, and then I can pledge my path and then it will be dispersed to the people that complete the planet.
00:18:51
Speaker
But I was reading your website and you kind of talked about the rippling effect. And I just wanted to make sure that we touched on that because we often feel so powerless as individuals in this fight for sustainability or anything, any major issue. It's because we always tell ourselves, I'm one person, I can't do anything. But the rippling effect, I don't know if you want to explain that a little bit.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, so we totally acknowledge that we are in the systems, right? And it's not up to me as a consumer to do something about the energy system, but I can do my part. And the rippling effect is based on kind of like the idea about tipping point. So the basic idea is that every movement, it actually starts somewhere, right? There's somebody that took an action, like if you go back to the civil rights movement,
00:19:38
Speaker
And in the US, right, it started by a woman actually doing something like changing behavior in the past, right, going up against, like, what was deemed to say, this is the behavior you have, how you have to act. And that kind of like started like a tipping point, a whole wave of new behavior. Right. So that's the basic idea. And kind of like if enough people rally around something, then we start to change, then we'll create a social change. That's all for today's episode.
00:20:07
Speaker
Pause the Planet is an amazing initiative that focuses on individual actions to create a change. And we think you should check it out. You can find all the information at pausetheplanet.com and you can also follow them on Twitter at Pause the Planet. Everything will be linked in the description below. But we would like to thank Thomas for sharing their initiative up with us today. Until next time, start making sustainable changes and keep changing the world.
00:20:36
Speaker
Bye. Thank you guys for listening. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. We had such a great time. Make sure to leave us a review. If you want more Changemakers content, you can follow us on Instagram at ginsears2rise and on Facebook at changemakerse.