Virginie Lavallée: Well, hello and welcome to a new episode of the Happy Producers Podcast. This week, we are doing things a little bit differently because I'm actually sharing a conversation that I recorded with Nic Cabana. He's the co-founder of Claynosaurz, an animated IP that is taking the web by storm. Nic and his team have been able to build a social-first, community-centric animated IP by leveraging Web3 and some of the monetization opportunities that are part of new technologies. This conversation was first recorded a few weeks ago on our live stream, "The Happy Producers: Positively Disrupting the Business of Animation". Nic was gracious enough to be my first guest and he was extremely generous, eloquent, and passionate. I am sharing the first 20 minutes of this conversation here with you. Now, please allow me to introduce you to Nic Cabana. Can I call you Nic? Should I go with Nicolas?
Nic Cabana: No. Please call me Nic. Everyone calls me Nic or my internet pseudonym, Cab, but just call me Nic.
Virginie Lavallée: Nic Cabana is the co-founder and co-chief creative officer of Claynosaurz. Claynosaurz is a digital-first brand and a community-built IP. Before launching Claynosaurz, Nic spent over a decade in animation and visual effects working with top studios like Sony Animation, Framestore, and Rodeo FX. He contributed to many big titles, including Jurassic World, Fantastic Beasts, and Game of Thrones. With Claynosaurz, Nic is seeking a non-traditional social-first approach to IP development. The brand includes super cool videos, collectibles, and fandom events. I first learned about Claynosaurz at the latest Annecy animation film festival where the fans had the swag everywhere. I was super inspired to discover that the team is using a Web3 native strategy and pioneering a new business model for the animation ecosystem. Nic, welcome.
Nic Cabana: Hi, everyone. Wow, what an intro. I started my life as an animator and then somehow woke up one day in charge or co-founding what has now become an engine with just a little bit over 40 employees. We started this from our home offices during COVID. I wanted to get a sense of who is here—Virginie mentioned there are a lot of creatives.
Virginie Lavallée: Yes, we have business owners, artists hoping to become business people, and people developing IP. Everybody here is interested in either developing their own IPs or launching a small business. Disruption is often a good place to build from scratch.
Nic Cabana: I guess we'll keep it informal. The thing I wanted to say is that you don't have to start knowing it all. What’s really important is finding your tribe and finding good people to build something with while leveraging everybody's strengths. Imposter syndrome is a real thing for creatives; it's still a real thing for me. But the more you practice, the more confident you become that it will be fine. We made some mistakes, the world didn’t end, and we kept doing it. You just need to start somewhere.
Virginie Lavallée: I love that. Do it scared.
Nic Cabana: I'm scared every day. You don't want to be complacent. Right now, the industry is in a weird place, but when there is a title shift, there are massive opportunities. When the chart is down, that is where you invest. Big studios have a hard time shifting directions because their organizational charts are too big and there is too much red tape. That is a huge opportunity for smaller companies that can test new ways of thinking and internet-first approaches.
Virginie Lavallée: Absolutely. They are not agile. We also don't need as many people as we used to because technology is advancing; rendering is easier and less expensive than it was 15 years ago. Can you take us through the timeline of how this went from a passion project to a business?
Nic Cabana: This started around mid-2022. I was exploring how blockchain tech could solve for the authenticity of digital assets. I had heard of NFTs and seen the negative connotation in the news, but I felt there was a misunderstood opportunity there. I realized there were amazing opportunities for building alongside an audience and monetizing in parallel in a way that hasn't really been done before. I had worked with clients like Netflix and HBO for 12 years and was a bit disillusioned with the inefficiencies of the VFX industry and how executives don't always know what people want. I saw success stories on social media from influencers like Mr. Beast and thought that model could work for an animated brand. It’s about being transparent about the process so the audience is bought into the adventure.
The original Claynosaurz were a napkin pitch from my buddy Dan Cabal. I pinged him while he was working at Framestore to see if he was curious about the space. We recruited a team of 11 people to do our master collection. Our plan was to kickstart the project by selling collectibles tied to content, similar to how Masters of the Universe or Barbie used toys for IP incubation. In digital, I don't need shelf space or inventory costs; I just make the assets in 3D and sell them globally. We started to create the collection with six species. Dinosaurs are culturally and sex agnostic; everyone finds them fascinating.
Virginie Lavallée: Fascinating.
Nic Cabana: We felt there was a gap in dinosaur properties that focused on collectibles and anthropomorphic designs with "toyetic" potential.
Virginie Lavallée: We are all nerds here.
Nic Cabana: A friend who spent time at Mattel told us that if the characters look "edible," it is 70% of the work. We focused on big pops of color and variety. We were thinking as collectors—we love to collect colors, shapes, and different iterations like Funko Pops. We leveraged our experience in video games and sub-communities like those on Reddit. In collectibles, communities often emerge around a niche, like people who only collect pink ones. We purpose-built the collection for that, engineering internet communities we call "tribes". For example, the Crimson Clan consists of characters with a red underbelly, and there are only about 40 of them out of 70,000 collectibles.
We did organic marketing on Twitter and engaged in forums to build a personal brand. It took about seven months to get to market. When we launched, we crashed the website in three hours and sold $1.3 million worth of collectibles. That began the real journey in November 2022. We had to figure out how to grow a brand while retaining ownership of our creations, knowing that distributors often take a big cut. We used community to amplify our story and built loyalty systems. The first thing we hired were community managers for our Discord servers.
We focused on community as our flywheel and hosted in-person events. Our first real event was in LA in March, and we had 650 people show up. That was the moment we realized it was a real thing. We then did an event in New York with 900 people and a lineup outside the block. We gave out digital collectibles at these events as a reward for showing up. Because they are digital, I can track the asset to see who has attended multiple events, which is powerful data for us. Every time we released a new product, we made a little cinematic to announce it, similar to how Supercell or Riot Games release content for patches. Our "game" is collecting. We eventually started an Instagram channel focusing on organic short-form content. One video had 4 million views within three days and things went nuts.
It wasn't everything all at once; we had to be smart about where we spent money. We wanted a brand that people would know in the next 5 to 10 years, like Bluey. You have to put "sticks in the ground" so the fence keeps being built. We started with a product, then IRL experiences, then content, then hired a social media pro. Today we are making video games and toys. Trust is everything when you are a small team.
Virginie Lavallée: I'm putting all the information in the comments about the rest of this conversation with Nic Cabana. I'll also be sharing information about upcoming live streams and how you can register. Until next time.
