 Esports, a show devoted to all things esports. I'm your host, Catherine Noor. Today we have a special treat. My guest is joining us from South Korea and will not only be talking about his new luxury esports clothing line Elite, but also about innovative ways to purchase items through social currency. My guest goes by the pseudonym Whale Shark and appears only by Avatar. Because of this, let me tell you a bit about him. Whale Shark is an early investor in blockchain and the creator of the biggest social currency available right now, which is backed by some of the most valuable non-fungible tokens in blockchain gaming, art, real estate, and other digital collectibles. Welcome Whale Shark. Hello, hi Catherine. Thank you very much for having me on. All right, so tell us about why you go by the name Whale Shark. So as you as you aptly pointed out, Whale Shark is the pseudonym that I use to transverse the metaverse as well as social media. Once again, the internet can be an extremely scary space. So just for the sake of privacy, usually I do I do tend to use the pseudonym as I'm entering into multiple projects actually in the blockchain space. Okay, so tell us about your background and journey into eSports. Absolutely. So Whale Shark, from a professional perspective, has over 15 years of experience in brand development, product development, as well as artificial intelligence. What happened is over the course and experience that I've accumulated through my professional life, as well as being an entrepreneur. You know, we saw an opportunity to enter into the eSports gaming space to actually answer a need for the market and we'll talk about that later. I've been a gamer all of my life and I'm passionate about gaming, love gaming. I grew up in a generation where we spent hours in cyber cafes, right, when everybody wanted to have a LAN party. Whether that was playing CS as a kid, moving on to playing some of the more recent games, or even now adventuring into the blockchain space and playing blockchain-based games, you know, I've always been drawn to the eSports and gaming community. I guess my latest venture prior to the upcoming launch of Elite is actually starting up my own eSports team in a game called God's Unchained, which is a new digital trading card game based on the blockchain and setting up that team kind of led me to want to develop some very cool apparel for the team members, which eventually led to the development of the upcoming Elite eSports apparel brand. Okay, so why and why did you decide to start the apparel brand? So I think it's a couple of things. First thing is I've always, and sorry for the lack of a better word, I've always been a fashionista, right? I love, I love clothes, you know, graduated from jeans and a t-shirt to a three-piece suit to athlete-leisure, to all these, you know, all these other kind of experimenting with fashion and going back to a three-piece suit, and then after that, you know, finding, you know, finding a way to say, hey, I haven't found the perfect t-shirt, can I make the perfect t-shirt? I haven't found the perfect hoodie, can I make the perfect hoodie? So I think the first part of it was really a passion for fashion, as well as just good apparel in general. The second reason, like I brought up in the introduction, when I did start this first eSports team with my partners in Gods Unchained, basically looking for a team uniform online was extremely difficult because when you looked at the market, all you had was a lot of dropship-based products where they were just taking a piece of apparel, maybe sticking a logo on it, maybe sticking some nice designs on it, and that was that. You know, eSports being the behemoth and the growth monster that it's going to be, I saw an opportunity in the market to say, hey, why isn't anyone developing amazing clothing for gamers? Why hasn't someone developed the Lulu lemon of eSports? And that was really an opportunity that I saw down there to be able to provide great quality clothing and just great quality designs for the gaming community. All right, so I'm sure everyone is excited to see this. Let's show the video. My favorite color black and definitely beautiful clothing, and that hoodie looks really comfortable. So, Welshark, why the name E1337? Yeah, a wonderful question, and it's actually a question that I get quite a lot. Basically, E1337 is read as elite, so basically E is E, one is L, and then after that the two threes are an E, and after that the seventh stands for T. Essentially, this name elite is derived from the hacker term, which is very popular in my day. I'm feeling relatively old now, but back in my day, one of the core terms from the hacker community or from the gaming community was the term LEET, or E1337, and basically what LEET represented was significant prowess or significant empowerment in the games or in the technical field that you played in. I wanted to create an apparel brand that would actually empower the people who are using it, not only from a design perspective, but also from a brand perspective. So really, very much like when someone puts on a three-piece suit before you get into that board meeting, people feel empowered, they feel on top of the world. I wanted people to have an apparel from a brand that when they put it on, they felt elite, right? They felt OP or overpowered, and that's actually where the name came from. Sure, and what makes elite different from other apparel brands? I think the main thing for elite is that we really took a look at apparel, really took at clothing from the ground up and said, how can we create an apparel or how can we create clothing that is specifically gamer-centric? Again, what we wanted to do is be very different from everybody else in the market who were trying to appeal to the market through design or just pure branding. We believe that we can offer the entire package, so not only the branding, not only the construction, but also just the customization of the clothes itself that will empower gamers and make their life a lot more convenient. And what are the project features that make elite apparel perfect for gaming and the gaming lifestyle? So every single product that we develop is actually developed from the ground up. I think, again, it started all the way back from looking at, what is the gamer lifestyle? How do gamers behave? Where do they appear? And let me give you an example. So for example, when we look at the hoodie, on the surface it might look like a regular hoodie, a regular hoodie to anyone else, but essentially everything from the material to the construction is customized to the gaming lifestyle. For example, the hoodie is really a construction of a cotton and polyester blend and the tactical weave that they use it not only ensures durability, it not only assures breathability, but at the same time as gamers tend to stay a lot of time in the air conditioned rooms sitting down at their computer, that sort of material selection allows for every single one of those I guess every single one of those pro points to be able to be comfortable while at the same time being warm at the same time. On the other side, if you look at the zippers, every single one of our hoodies comes with zippered pockets and the reason that is is because as you're sitting down all the time people are always putting things in their pockets and things are dropping out, right? You got your wallet, you have your wallet, you have your keys. I'm not sure why no one ever thought about this before, but as a gamer and if you're sitting down at your computer or if you're sitting down outside in a cyber cafe, you want to make sure that your stuff doesn't drop out as you're moving towards this. A finer point to the zippers is that we actually went to YKK, which is one of the largest zipper manufacturers and the best zipper manufacturers in the world and basically we asked them, give us your largest zipper size and the reason being that is because again you're gaming, you want to get something out of your pocket, you don't want to be fumbling around with a tab or a small tiny tab on your zipper. You want to be able just to be able to reach down, unzip, pull out whatever you're looking for whether that's your cell phone or your wallet, put it on the table. I guess a final point to that is the other thing is when I was and being a self-proclaimed aficionado of hoodies, when you want to really, sometimes gamers and not only gamers but even travelers, we like to wear these large noise canceling earphones and the thing is the size of the hoodies in the current market today, they just don't fit. If you try to pull a hoodie over these gaming headphones, actually that I'm wearing right now, it's going to strangle me, right? So basically what we did was we oversized the hoodie, the hood itself. So basically now, you know, whether they're gaming, whether they're walking on the streets, gamers are able to use that oversized, those oversized headphones and wear their hoods at the same time. Oh that's fantastic. So tell me a bit about the process of developing your first collection. Oh Catherine, it was the most educational but probably the most amount of fun that the team and I have ever had. You know, being from a more traditional and more standard market, yet being a startup, what we did was we followed a very mature process to understanding, you know, what are the customer needs and how are we going to get there. The process towards how we develop these items was firstly everything starts with market research. So basically what I had was the team were in all of the prominent gaming cafes, cyber cafes in Seoul, Korea, you know, doing observational analysis as well as survey analysis. So really we were looking for the gamers to tell us, hey, what are you looking for, right? And the funny thing is that a lot of the things that they asked for were really juxtaposed to each other, right, because what they were asking for is, hey I want something comfortable but you know, I want it to look good. Hey, I want to keep warm but at the same time I want it to be breathable. You know, it was a lot of those conundrums that we that we filtered out from that market research and then after that we actually approached some of the major garment manufacturing factories and companies in Seoul, Korea and said, hey, this is what we're looking for. Can we collaborate and make it together, right? You know, what we found out is that it is quite difficult to really find, or it's quite difficult to really find a way to answer every single suggestion or gripe that the gaming community had. But through, I want to say, we went through about 10 material and prototyping stages that roughly took about six months. It was just a lot of trial and error just to try and get there from every single detail, from the cutting to the material, and then eventually to all of the details that are on the clothing itself. I think the final part of that process is really quality, right? Being a luxury eSports apparel brand, we had to take a very professional and very mature quality assurance process and integrate it into ours. So I can tell you my washing machine at home, my dryer, as well as the washing machine and dryers of a lot of the laundromats around our office, they were actually washing these items a hundred times over, right? And you know, today I think it's amazing because we've developed a three-point process where every single item, and we're not even spot-checking, but every single item within Elite is checked over 10, over across 10 different points to make sure that every single item when it goes out to customers is absolutely perfect. Oh, that's terrific. So let me ask you, if you buy a piece of clothing from Elite, do you get a token? That is correct. That is absolutely correct. So as you mentioned in the introduction, I'm an early investor in the blockchain space, as well as a pioneering member of the non-fungible token space. One of the ways, because once again people are spending money on this and they want to know that they have the real thing. So basically what we thought about was saying, hey, is it possible to use non-fungible token technology to provide a token of authenticity for the items that they purchase? So what people will be getting when they purchase an item from Elite is a token that is on the blockchain that says, yes, I bought this item and this is real. This is from Seoul, South Korea. This is from Elite. And whether they decide to collect the apparel as a collector's item or if they decide to give it to somebody, they're able to provide proof of authenticity along with this. So what's your vision for those tokens? So my vision for those tokens are number one. I think while the token does present itself as a proof of authenticity, at the same time what it does is it also serves as a collector item. So what we did was we really took a lot of time to design this nice authenticity token that people can actually collect and being a digital art file, people can actually display it in their office or in a digital frame or on their cell phone and it looks really, really cool. Some of the things that we're working on in the future is rather than have an actual digital picture of a token, we're really looking to collaborate with artists and have them use digital artwork as a collector's token and that way, hey, it's not only going to be again a token of authenticity but people are able to say, hey, I got this by buying a piece of Elite and hey, it's hanging up in my office on my TV. So yeah, that's the vision of where we're looking for it in the future. Okay, so I'm curious, the video and the photographs, where were they filmed? Was that South Korea? That is South Korea, my friend. So basically what we did is we wanted to make sure that, again, Seoul, South Korea today in eSports is really known as the Mecca of eSports, right? We're fanatics, we're fanatics about eSports here. I mean, myself, I mean, I watch League of Legends Championships Korea all the time. Actually, small secret but a small nod, one of the core teams from the LCK actually uses one of my houses as a gaming house. So definitely, naturally, a huge fan of theirs as well. But yeah, I think what we wanted to do is we wanted to make sure that we created a brand that was synonymous with eSports. And again, South Korea being the Mecca of eSports as it is, everything that we do produce is designed, sourced, and manufactured in Seoul. You know, I think that the fact that it's from South Korea does give a lot of legitimacy and some tenacity for your clothing line. Thank you, absolutely. And, you know, you see in that video actually, you see a lot of famous landmarks, including Gyeongbokgung, which is the palace. Myeongdong, which is the main shopping area. We just wanted to make sure that people understood where we were from and the image that we were trying to portray. Sure. And so, Is there a, are you providing a limited amount of product in this collection? We absolutely are. So, you know, one of the things that I always wanted to achieve with a clothing line is, you know, it's not only clothing, but it's also a collectible, right? As a major collector myself, I do believe I'm one of the largest collectors of digital art in the world. You know, I think it's something very special when you own something that's very scarce and something that's very limited. So that was really an approach that we wanted to take with elite. At the same time, we did also want to make sure that people felt very special about the clothing that they're wearing, right? Why are we creating elite? It's because there's really a lack of a brand or an apparel brand that can really wrap the gamer, right? So, you know, once again, in wrapping that inner gamer in you, you want to feel unique about the about the piece of clothing that you're wearing. So, what we're going to be doing is for every single style of clothing, there is only going to be 3,000 pieces ever made and that includes across all five or five or six sizes depending on depending on each item. What we look to do is actually only, so only produce 300 of each style every quarter and then after that end that collection after 10 after 10 quarters. Okay, so I see it being like those shoes that people line up for. Kind of kind of tapping into a tiny bit of the hype beast culture, right? So, you know, again, I really hope that that some people do do buy these, collect these, not only wear them and enjoy them, right? But also, you know, give them away as presents to the gamers within their families. But Katherine, you can be rest assured that I will have a couple of styles framed up and hung up in my office as well. Oh, absolutely, that's fantastic. So, tell me about the elite metaverse store on the Crypto Voxels platform. Absolutely. So, you know, just being always at the forefront or thinking, you know, what is what is really next, right? I think virtual reality is really something that a lot of people, particularly with the rise and the damage that COVID-19 has created, to say, hey, what role does what does virtual reality play in our reality? What we wanted to do is we wanted to take an initial stab at, you know, what would a virtual reality store look like? There's this amazing platform and project on the blockchain called Crypto Voxels. And basically what it allows you to do, it allows you to very much like Minecraft, it allows you to build a virtual environment whereby people can interact, they can buy, they can see information about a certain brand or a certain store. And what we did is in that metaverse or in that part of the metaverse, we built up this elite metaverse store. It's actually in the shape of a gaming computer built by a computer, built by actually a digital architect company called Voxel Architects. And basically in there, people are able to walk around, look at the clothing, see the lookbook, and eventually hopefully, we believe, be able to buy the items there and then as well. So, is it ready to visit? Absolutely. You guys can go in, you guys can see the entire building is literally, it's like a PC tower, a gaming PC tower with the fans running on, with all the LED lights. But yes, absolutely we welcome everybody and anybody to visit our metaverse store today. Okay, and what can customers do in that space or use it for? So, for the time being, it's mainly a showcase. So, for the time being, what we have is we've recreated a digital store environment and what we've done is we put in information about the brand as well as special photos from the lookbook in this metaverse store. One of the things that we're going to be launching actually is a loyalty token for the elite brand. And in the future, people are going to be able to just go to this metaverse store. They are going to be able to buy both physical as well as digital collectibles from the store using this loyalty token. So, how does elite use the blockchain? So, I think the blockchain is not only integral to the future and the present of elite. It is actually integral to the world as we know it as a whole. At the moment, there are three ways that we are using the blockchain. The first way is, as we spoke about earlier on, we're using it for the authenticity token. And again, using non-fungible token technology, people are able to hold these tokens on their blockchain wallet and be able to prove that authenticity beyond a doubt because that token did come directly from elite, that they do own this item that they have in their possession, and it authentically did come from elite itself. The second way that we're using the blockchain is basically through loyalty token system. So, basically, our loyalty token system is not tied down to a closed-based system like the points that you might get from the supermarket. But rather, when you actually receive the elite loyalty tokens, you actually hold them in your wallet, you own them, you can actually sell them to somebody else, which I believe is an amazing innovation in loyalty point-based systems. The third way that we're doing it is, again, we hope to actually create a lot of digital collectibles as well as digital experiences in the metaverse, and we'll be able to do that by actually minting all of these collectibles and experiences on the blockchain itself. So, do you see a future of blockchain in the world for physical assets? Absolutely. I think the role of blockchain in both physical and digital assets is very important. When you do take a look at the world today, you're talking about a generation that spends 90% of their time in screens, on computers, online. You see skins of games that are running in the thousands, if not the 10,000s of dollars, right? And blockchain is the only one way where you're going to be able to manage the digital scarcity as well as provenance of all of these collectibles. Physical items, very similar to what we're doing today, is, again, being able to use the blockchain to verify authenticity and provenance of a physical item. I think these are all very important ways that blockchain is going to integrate into our lives in both digital and physical collectibles. So, Willshark, I understand that you have a new avatar that you're using. Tell us about that. So, again, well, I would love to come on camera. Again, I do value my privacy, and what we did especially for this podcast, I actually rushed the team, but thank you very much to the team for doing this, is that we put together a digital avatar that we're going to be able to use moving forward. And the amazing thing is, as we go digital, Catherine, this is just for you. We're able to experiment with the different ways that we could use this. And, again, that was just one example. And another example is if I'm confused, I can do this. Again, and I definitely never do get angry, but I guess the team put this just in case for me, just in case that I had to say something during a meeting, but this is the angry vibe that we have over here. Oh, that's absolutely perfect. And I'm honored that you have a new avatar for today. Thank you. It's really building a fate. All right, so tell us how they can get elite clothing. Thank you. So we are going to their two major launches that are happening over the course of the next seven days. Today, we are going to be dropping our first elite loyalty token, which is called just simply elite. So it's 1337. People can get information on that by searching us on Twitter or Instagram. So if you search on Twitter or Instagram for elite esports apparel. And after that, the launch of the main of the main online store will launch on December the 15th. And people can actually find us at elite. So e1337.pro. And we will be launching at 12 a.m. December 15th, Hong Kong time. Terrific. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on my show. Well, Shark, thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me on. It was truly a pleasure, and I wish everybody the best of health and a fantastic day. All right. So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Next week, my guests will be Joni Kraut and Dr. Lindsay Magliore of Women in Games International. We'll be talking about diversity in esports. See you then.