Tommaso Sandretto on the future of content creation, distribution and monetization with bcl.xyz (Episode 339)
Tommaso Sandretto joins us to discuss on the future of content creation, distribution and monetization with bcl.xyz.
Tommaso Sandretto is Chief Revenue and Chief Investment Officer of Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL), FOX Entertainment’s Web3 studio, which provides content creators, IP owners and brands end-to-end Web3 solutions to build, launch, manage and sell Non-Fungible Token (NFT) and fungible token content experiences directly to their fanbase and audiences.
As BCL’s Chief Revenue Officer, Sandretto oversees and creates alignment between all of the company’s teams that affect revenue generation to ensure effectiveness and maximize profitability. Furthermore, as Chief Investment Officer, he is responsible for setting BCL’s investment strategy, vet business opportunities and manage portfolio companies.
Prior to BCL, Tommaso was CEO at Sole Resorts, where he doubled the company’s property portfolio and led the pandemic emergency and turn around. He also co-founded SF- Partner, a New York-based lending platform with more than $650 million in transaction volume. Sandretto began his career as an M&A investment banker at Citibank.
Links:
Blockchain Creative Labs: https://www.bcl.xyz/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommaso-sandretto-b675349/
BCL Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/wearebcl
Krapopolis: https://www.krapopolis.com
Krapopolis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/krapopolis
Want more resources around this podcast? Keep up to date on the latest articles here.
The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below.
00:00:16:20 – 00:00:34:17
Richard Carthon: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of cryptocurrency. Your host here, Richard Carthon, and today got a very special guest that is working on projects with really cool drops that I’m excited to learn more about. We have Tommaso, Sandro, who’s the CRO of BCL, which stands for Blockchain Creative Labs. How are you doing today?
00:00:35:06 – 00:00:36:26
Tommaso Sandretto: I’m doing great, Richard. How are you.
00:00:37:14 – 00:00:48:17
Richard Carthon: Man? I’m great. No problem. The new year is starting off pretty strong with some bullish momentum, so that’s always encouraging. And it’s also cool to see as much
00:00:50:26 – 00:01:11:04
Richard Carthon: liveliness come back to the various other verticals of the market too. So I know I’m excited for that. And some big conferences coming up like ETH Denver, South by Southwest, Outer Edge, LA, all these others. So pretty, pretty exciting times. But let’s dive in to learn more about you. Let’s first learn some background. Can you give us some background on yourself?
00:01:12:06 – 00:01:14:15
Tommaso Sandretto: Um, thank you for asking. I’m a
00:01:16:21 – 00:01:54:08
Tommaso Sandretto: old school investment banker by training, so I come from the investment banking world in London, then moved to New York and moved into, um, more physical assets and currently studied a lot of real estate development in the States. And then, you know, as a true finance, passionate person, started diving into Defi and started diving in all the possibilities that that cryptography actually brought to my space. And then that space kept on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger and my interest grew and, and got connected with some of the management team at Fox.
00:01:54:10 – 00:02:26:27
Tommaso Sandretto: And they they mentioned they were about to launch this new venture in, in blockchain called Blockchain Creative Labs and they needed somebody with my skill set and um, yeah. And then that was about over a year and a half ago. We launched the company officially as South by Southwest last year and since then we haven’t stopped and all sort of drops, all sorts of sorts of changes of all sorts of incredible development for in the space of very excited.
00:02:27:17 – 00:02:49:23
Richard Carthon: Yeah. Mean wow talk about an interesting time to launch and to still be able to come out and have some really cool, you know some initial successes even through the market of where it was at the time. But let’s let’s dive a little bit deeper into you work in a traditional finance world, you start developing all these skill sets. What was that first introduction to the world of blockchain and crypto?
00:02:50:18 – 00:02:52:03
Tommaso Sandretto: Oh wow, It was.
00:02:52:05 – 00:03:22:15
Tommaso Sandretto: An old company. No. One of the OG Defi company called Snx Synthetics. And that’s where that’s where I started diving into the space. I had a couple of friends that were, you know, the first round. They’ve been rugged into space for like five, seven, eight years, which is probably as way back as you can go. And they remember that walking me through, you know, what Defi was or of cryptography with the opportunity that there was. And there was always like pushing it back and not really paying a lot of attention.
00:03:22:17 – 00:03:59:11
Tommaso Sandretto: And then and then they walk me through what synthetics could do. And so I got really excited about the space and started diving in and got my metamask and gold wallets and understanding, you know, embracing the frictionless freedom concept. And, and yeah, I never looked back since. And then after that, you know, the evolution into nfts was very obvious for, for for a lot of us and, and then you know, and then the world kind of opened and think that you know we just such early times still in terms of adoptions and what we can do with this with the technology.
00:03:59:13 – 00:04:02:03
Richard Carthon: So yeah I mean that was my hook.
00:04:02:05 – 00:04:03:16
Tommaso Sandretto: My defi was my hook.
00:04:03:26 – 00:04:33:27
Richard Carthon: Yeah. And for some people, I think especially coming from the traditional world, traditional finance world, it starts to like really sink into you and like make you a little bit more passionate. I come from traditional finance as well, and first smart contracts like blew my mind and then as I learned about Defi was like, Oh my gosh, yes, this this resonates. Let’s dive deeper into this. Let’s find a way to to be able to work in this. And so you get brought on to BCL Blockchain Creative Labs.
00:04:33:29 – 00:04:56:21
Richard Carthon: You launch at South by Southwest last year and since then you have had a ton of drops, you know, just to name a few. You had the WWE Moonsault, you had mask verse and you also even have the USFL, which is going on right now. Can you tell us a little bit more about these and other drops that you know, people might or might be familiar with?
00:04:56:24 – 00:05:31:11
Tommaso Sandretto: Yeah, I mean, I would start from probably our biggest piece of IP, which is quite popular, is a Dan Harmon Show co-creator, Rick and Morty. And he’s he’s built this incredible story in ancient Greece of a Node family trying to figure out how. To live together and how not to basically kill each other. And it’s and we created a whole world around. It was kind of the perfect storm. We created a whole wrapper around a collection of nfts they give you access to.
00:05:31:28 – 00:06:03:00
Tommaso Sandretto: Never seen it, never had the opportunity, animatics behind the scenes connection with the creator that we organize an awesome event in in New York with a pre-screening of the first episode for owners. So really, really catering to the fans. So we’re very much focused on being part of Fox. We really focused at creating a bigger and better connection with the fans. We’re not really here to speculate. We’re not really here to do any sort of, you know, you know, asset versus investment type of role.
00:06:03:02 – 00:06:39:14
Tommaso Sandretto: Our role is really creating the fan experience, the ultimate fan experience, and how can we leverage this technology and bring it and help basically the fans get into the space. And so this is fantastic. You said was a unique opportunity as well because it’s really merging sports and and technology. So we’ve every single season Passholders now you get a team token. The team token allows you to do things that you would never be able to do in the NFL, hence go courtside fireside and to for the kickoff and meet and greet your your stars and vote on the best ones of the game.
00:06:39:16 – 00:07:10:18
Tommaso Sandretto: So we’re really trying to gamify the concept as well. We use the feel and so for every different piece of IP, we have a little sliver, a different interpretation on how we can use this technology. And we have a bigger plan coming up for as a roll up of everything that we’re doing. But for now we can discuss it. Um, but it’s, it’s definitely such a unique way to interact, like with, with your fans directly and letting them touch the app more and have a sense of ownership of it.
00:07:11:15 – 00:08:00:07
Richard Carthon: Oh, definitely. Just to talk about crypto for a second, like I’m a huge Rick and Morty fan and when this dropped, I was watching it pretty closely and it’s been really cool to see how that world’s been developing over time as well as just looking at the US and as you were saying, you know, being able to have some really cool added features like being able to go field side, being able to have some one on one time and and do some of these unique experiences, I really do think this is an amazing use case that could be brought to other major leagues that are out there by showcasing not just the desire for this, but the marketplace that also exists in this as well, which I think is really cool how, as you all have been now doing a lot of these different types of drops, having a lot of different types of use cases.
00:08:00:09 – 00:08:08:06
Richard Carthon: What do you think have been some of the biggest takeaways in your first year of doing some of these creative types of launches?
00:08:08:26 – 00:08:44:04
Tommaso Sandretto: I think everybody in the space has the same as the same feelings and opinions. You know, the ecosystem is very small, right? The the fan base is very small. And so it’s very rich of speculators and investors and it’s not very rich of call it leisure leisure owners and fan owners. So really, like it’s going that’s the core of our mission is really trying to extend the size and the audience and make the tent as bigger as possible and make the experience accessible to everybody.
00:08:44:06 – 00:09:18:18
Tommaso Sandretto: So it’s not to anyone who has already the, you know, Ethereum or Polygon or Matic on their or matic on their on their wallets. It’s about how do we create an experience that is an end to end experience that is seamless, it’s easy. It’s, you know, the more and more I realize that Web3 should really be something that is very behind the scenes and enhances the experience publicly, not explaining, not having to explain to everybody what work. Three years makes the job a lot easier and the technology behind it makes it a lot easier.
00:09:18:20 – 00:09:51:20
Tommaso Sandretto: I don’t know you, but you’re you’re a transfer guy. You didn’t know how this streaming service that you’re using right now for this podcast worked until you had to get into it and learn about it because you didn’t care. As long as it produces, as long as it does what the experience that you want or the television or Netflix or how does apfs or service or all this stuff. And so unless you were part of this space, you weren’t it wasn’t part of your daily life or interest. And, and so we can’t pretend that every single fan of our IP dives as deep as we do in this space, you know.
00:09:51:22 – 00:10:25:11
Tommaso Sandretto: So it’s very it’s very difficult because we have to like, you know, take a step back and just be like, what seems obvious to us? It’s really not obvious to the fans. So we have to spend time to step back. And actually we created a whole bubble of, you know, friends and family and testing bench of, of, you know, of they do not have any sort of experience in the space so that they can go through what we’re trying to build and if they can do it perfectly that. Spine. And so we always, you know, we always go back to our parents and our and all of the people we came around to make sure that they can get it done as quickly as we would like them to.
00:10:25:17 – 00:11:03:19
Tommaso Sandretto: So that’s definitely learning number one. And learning number two is really about how to, you know, how to how to present the product for what it is and not for what it’s not. You know, one of the biggest examples is the jobs that we had, and we had a ton of excitement about it. We drop 10,000 folks, um, and in connection with the show, but the show still has to launch, right? And so all of a sudden, like when we meet, when we are meant we had this rush of, of, of of you know, of fans that we thought were fans.
00:11:03:21 – 00:11:35:27
Tommaso Sandretto: We’re so excited. And all of a sudden all of our analytics were fully skewed and all over the place with like, you know, 30% from Nigeria, 40% from somewhere in Asia. And we’re like, That’s so weird. That’s really doesn’t sound like the community or potential like, you know, animation fans. And then basically through time we realized that those were mostly speculators coming to the place. And then over the past basically nearly six months, we’ve been basically flushing out all the speculators and onboarding real fans that are engaging with us on a daily basis.
00:11:36:04 – 00:12:06:16
Tommaso Sandretto: And they’re engaging with the creative team on a daily basis, and they’re excited about something like we launched something called the Key Super Popular. This is the first time that any show actually lets you be part of the show. So, you know, if you wanted to be part of the show, you could basically go through trivia questions and allows you to to win a like a critical populace, which basically you would send us a picture to come see us. We would design you and make you part of the season finale and you would be in the show.
00:12:06:18 – 00:12:24:28
Tommaso Sandretto: And then your character, you know, you can only imagine what happens with your character. And going forward, it becomes your own and then you can develop it how you want or and or keep on developing it with us. And and those are the experience we are close to. We’re not really close to the like the buying and selling, but it’s a, it’s a habit for the industry.
00:12:25:00 – 00:13:04:12
Richard Carthon: So yeah, so the two takeaways. The first is the importance of the community building in what you’re building, making sure that it’s easy enough that anybody can pick it up and understand what’s going on, which is challenging. Creating this technology is its own can of worms and it’s proving to be difficult in its own right. But then to be able to distill it down to your greater audience that, you know, most of the world is still in, which is like the Web two. How do you start making like the Web 2.5 and then eventually bridge them over into the three? And then for the second point of any time you do a drop, unfortunately, you’re going to deal with some speculators and they don’t necessarily value what you’re trying to build as a community as much as your true hardcore fans.
00:13:04:14 – 00:13:22:02
Richard Carthon: And so it’s how do you get like a a good blend of the two, but hopefully over time really start to get some of those like diehard fans into the ecosystem. And as you start to get those, you start to really see the benefits of stronger community and people really giving great feedback and really being more active in that world that you’re trying to create.
00:13:22:22 – 00:13:23:26
Tommaso Sandretto: Yeah, exactly.
00:13:24:15 – 00:13:54:06
Richard Carthon: Awesome. Well, through learning those things, I’m sure there is a lot more to come within the BCL lineup and some other cool things. And one of them that I kind of mentioned that kind of want to dive into just a little bit more is the mask verse. So the mask is one of those shows that kind of came and took the world by storm here in the States and has been really interesting to see evolve over time. What was the concept around mask verse?
00:13:55:08 – 00:14:28:23
Tommaso Sandretto: So we just we launched a new experience for the ninth season. So we called the and it’s really as as integrated into the show as possible. So we went through the whole we have a loyalty pass that you can claim for free and you basically are scored based on your vote. So you can vote every episode. And if you win, if you actually get every, every single time you win the you select the right character and you basically get awarded some sort of stars or loyalty component.
00:14:28:25 – 00:15:06:02
Tommaso Sandretto: And if you get to the end and there’s going to be some sort of prizes or involvement into the show in the in the following season, oops, spoiler. But um, number one and number two is all the token video content that we built. So we actually created a, um, behind the scenes confession room that has never been done before, that only the token holders actually have access to where we actually ask, I think every possible questions you could ever want to know about the characters, the person’s, how we came about it.
00:15:06:04 – 00:15:10:29
Tommaso Sandretto: And again, this is to try to get closer to, to, to the characters and the fan base.
00:15:12:14 – 00:15:20:26
Tommaso Sandretto: So those are the two main those are the two main. Call it utilities, but also experiences more expenses connected to to the top job.
00:15:21:08 – 00:15:59:18
Richard Carthon: Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. I think the more active engagement where you can get people to be watching live as the episodes are releasing and then by participating in I know a lot of times people at home are just like, I could be a judge, I could be there, I could figure this out. And now you’re giving them that chance and can there’s rewards for for being correct. So increasing the engagement, giving that utility back to your hardcore fans. And again, just really making a really great community and an experience for these people who who want to be part of this ecosystem as we kind of like, oh, go ahead.
00:16:00:07 – 00:16:32:15
Tommaso Sandretto: No, you know, one concept is that we kind of have a bit of responsibility in this, right? We’re very blessed by having Fox Fox Network’s first broadcast broadcast behind us. So we are on the lower thirds on the number one show on television. You and it’s kind of a unique opportunity to really push forward with the space and actually on board as many people, as many people as we can. So it’s really a unique position for for and and for FOX.
00:16:33:09 – 00:17:04:11
Richard Carthon: Absolutely. And I mean, again, the eyes are there and you get to do a real life case study and get real feedback and make adjustments very quickly. It’s really cool use case and I think y’all are in a really cool position to be able to learn a lot in a short amount of time and build something that can help move the ecosystem further and faster. As we look at mass adoption, as you kind of take a step back and you look at all of the world of Web3, there’s a lot of interesting topics going on.
00:17:04:13 – 00:17:16:03
Richard Carthon: And one of them is the kind of I don’t want to say the war, but let’s call it the battle between Blur and Opensea. So, you know, what’s your take on what’s going on over there?
00:17:18:11 – 00:17:37:08
Tommaso Sandretto: Wow, what a shame. Great question. But. We have, we’re kind of saddened or actually am saddened by this this this war, because it really goes against the ethos of war web three years or the reason why we’re really participating in it. You know, having the concept of
00:17:40:15 – 00:18:41:12
Tommaso Sandretto: turning. Marketplaces into basic speculations, not only the NFT projects, it started with NFT, it started with tokens, then it went to NFT projects. And now we’re basically speculating on marketplaces by incentivizing users to create wash trades and fake sales to generate a non-existing volume just to claim token and enrich themselves. Meanwhile, you’re destroying the work of companies that have been in the space for very long, and they’ve been very they’ve been trying to do the, I think, the right thing, which is try to make it as easy and as, how can you say friendly interface and UI that you can that you can have to actually onboard as many people as you want in the space? Um, just for pure profits, you know, and you know, and it’s also saddened me that, you know, all the companies decided to like, oh, okay, so if that’s the game, let’s all go back to the game.
00:18:41:14 – 00:18:42:10
Tommaso Sandretto: And I’m like, Wait.
00:18:42:12 – 00:18:42:27
Tommaso Sandretto: I thought.
00:18:42:29 – 00:19:15:02
Tommaso Sandretto: That we were in this for the long term. I thought we were in this not for speculators. I thought we were on this because we’re changing the world. It’s like we’re not in this just to speculate. And so it’s really not a, I think, a healthy portion of our ecosystem right now. I hope it resolves sooner rather than later. And we can finally go back to trying to, you know, onboard the public and and and and make the tent bigger so we can all enjoy this and the spoils of this of this technology.
00:19:16:02 – 00:19:55:02
Richard Carthon: Yeah. Just to add to that, I think we’re starting to see, unfortunately, the ugly side of greed. And we need to, as you said, be creating spaces for the end user and not only just safe places, but great experiences for the masses as they come. And ultimately these marketplaces, you’re going to make your money. The fact that you’re really trying to nickel and dime to or even these people, like you said, who are creating this artificial volume just to increase their potential payout, uh, not great, but ultimately I think we’re going to get past this.
00:19:55:04 – 00:20:13:04
Richard Carthon: I think there’s going to be a lot of lessons that are going to be taken away from this moment, especially while volumes are lower than they were, let’s call it, two years ago. And I think when we come on the other side of this, we’re going to be in a much better place as, as as an industry. So, yeah, yeah.
00:20:13:11 – 00:20:24:06
Tommaso Sandretto: I mean, to regulators, I mean, this is going to this is going to be right, left and center. What the regulators are thinking these days, especially that they are I feel I feel like they are now full time on crypto and.
00:20:24:08 – 00:20:30:10
Tommaso Sandretto: On and on nfts and on blockchain space, as you know better than they do. And this is the this is exactly.
00:20:30:12 – 00:20:33:02
Tommaso Sandretto: The example of the wrong incentive that you need to.
00:20:33:04 – 00:20:44:29
Tommaso Sandretto: Put in place to show what a regulator that this is a sophisticated and educated space instead of being the Wild West. And so, you know, we’re we are passengers. We’re watchers.
00:20:45:01 – 00:20:53:12
Tommaso Sandretto: And are extremely carefully doing everything that we do for for for the right, for the right reasons that make sense to.
00:20:53:14 – 00:20:54:27
Tommaso Sandretto: Us and and.
00:20:54:29 – 00:20:57:12
Tommaso Sandretto: Try not to take advantage of anybody.
00:20:58:09 – 00:21:29:27
Richard Carthon: Definitely. Well, that is just one great example of how things are going to evolve over time. And I think there’s going to be even more. But a lot of this has to do with learning essential lessons. And on that subject, like I always like to wrap up with a couple of fun questions. And you’ve now been in this space for a while. You’ve now undergone the journey of BCL for the last year with all the information knowledge you have right now. If you could go in part 1 to 2 pieces of wisdom to yourself when you first started, what would you tell yourself?
00:21:34:00 – 00:21:35:18
Tommaso Sandretto: Be patient and sleep more.
00:21:36:15 – 00:21:42:18
Tommaso Sandretto: Those are the only two things that I can tell you. Um, because it’s, it’s, it’s, you know.
00:21:42:20 – 00:22:05:06
Tommaso Sandretto: I can’t believe it’s end of February, but it feels like it’s end of June. Um, you know, and the team, you know, I take this and I can’t. It’s not like I know, but like, all my teammates, you know, work just as hard or harder than me, especially on the engineering side. You know, it’s, you know, it’s a brutal space. It’s it chews you up and.
00:22:05:08 – 00:22:06:17
Tommaso Sandretto: And it takes a lot.
00:22:06:19 – 00:22:12:23
Tommaso Sandretto: Away from from from our lives. But, you know, it also gives you big rewards. But you know, getting some fuel.
00:22:12:29 – 00:22:13:14
Tommaso Sandretto: A bit.
00:22:13:16 – 00:22:14:15
Tommaso Sandretto: More sleep would be.
00:22:14:27 – 00:22:16:08
Tommaso Sandretto: Definitely a better place to be.
00:22:17:01 – 00:22:47:17
Richard Carthon: Yeah, I think that that is a great point. Patience and sleeping. More to your point, people are working really hard. It’s it’s not a bear market. It’s a builders market. And as people are building right now, people are building feverishly and and sometimes we forget to take a moment to take a step back, breathe a little bit more sleep a little bit more taken some a little bit of time to refresh your mind just because you feel like, oh, my gosh, I, I, I can’t there’s only have so much fun.
00:22:47:19 – 00:23:00:01
Richard Carthon: I’ll have so much time. So there’s like all this added stress and I think this is just a really good remember a, a good time to remember to take a step, take a breath and also make sure you’re getting your sleep in. So thank you for that.
00:23:00:15 – 00:23:04:11
Tommaso Sandretto: Yeah, we always I always think about it. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
00:23:04:13 – 00:23:06:21
Tommaso Sandretto: And so it’s a long way.
00:23:07:16 – 00:23:15:19
Richard Carthon: Oh, definitely. Well, Tommaso, thank you for all of the amazing information. What is a final thought that you want to leave with all the listeners today?
00:23:18:09 – 00:23:42:11
Tommaso Sandretto: Final thought is the entrance of other large incumbents and customer related companies in the space? Or is such a pivotal moment that we are actually experiencing that is going to drive what the future of the space looks like? So think that we are just about so we’re just on the cusp. We’re about to see major adoption, major drops, major,
00:23:44:04 – 00:23:48:05
Tommaso Sandretto: major marketplaces, new marketplaces coming online. And I think.
00:23:48:07 – 00:23:49:21
Tommaso Sandretto: This is, you know, stay.
00:23:49:23 – 00:23:54:17
Tommaso Sandretto: Tuned and let’s make sure we are we all get there.
00:23:55:14 – 00:24:09:12
Richard Carthon: Definitely. We were all going to make it. We’re going to find a way. And I agree. I think there’s some really cool things on the way. So thank you for that. For everyone listening, you can go to bcl.xyz to learn more information, but what are some other places that people can learn more about?
00:24:09:14 – 00:24:13:18
Tommaso Sandretto: BCL Oh, you can learn on Twitter. We got a great Twitter.
00:24:13:20 – 00:24:14:08
Tommaso Sandretto: Account of.
00:24:14:10 – 00:24:18:13
Tommaso Sandretto: BCL. We have also the Twitter handles. We have all the different.
00:24:18:15 – 00:24:25:22
Tommaso Sandretto: Projects that you’ll find on our Twitter. Then we have our specific Twitters as well. We are on Discord and we have.
00:24:25:24 – 00:24:28:25
Tommaso Sandretto: We’re basically everywhere where you can possibly ever find us.
00:24:29:24 – 00:24:38:17
Richard Carthon: Perfect. Well, Tommaso, thank you again for sharing all the amazing information. We really appreciated the conversation. And as always, for everyone listening, stay cryptocurrency.
00:24:40:10 – 00:24:41:17
Richard Carthon: Thank you for joining us for another.
00:24:41:19 – 00:24:56:21
Richard Carthon: Episode of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a cryptocurrency and blockchain education platform. It’s bridging the gap between the curious newcomers who are just discovering the space and the thought leaders who are shaping its future. All opinions expressed by Richard Carthon. The cryptocurrency team and their guests on this show.
00:24:56:24 – 00:25:04:03
Richard Carthon: Are exclusively their own opinions on this show, and any other cryptocurrency production is exclusively for informational purposes.
Crypto Current will be guiding all of you who are new to the cryptocurrency world to becoming a cryptocurrency and blockchain expert. Crypto Current was founded to give access to information to everyone on current events occurring in cryptocurrency and blockchain in a digestible way. Since its creation, we have created content that impacted thousands of people through its podcast, blog, and social media.