MEET THE CANDIDATE: FudMaster Is Running For BAYC Community Council Co-Lead!

FudMaster joined the Bored Ape Yacht Club a few weeks after the mint during a personal ‘fuck it’ moment and has been a ‘community guy’ ever since, getting to know Apes around the world while also building tools to help Apes connect. Now, he’s hoping to bring the entrepreneurial skills he’s learned in real life and combine them with his love of community to the BAYC’s Community Council as its Co-Lead in 2024!

This year’s BAYC Community Council elections are underway, and Apes are taking to the polls to elect a Council Co-Lead, who will act as the committee's co-leader, a Made By Apes Liaison, who will be responsible for finding ways to support and connect Made By Apes businesses, and a Clubhouse and Events Liaison, who will be responsible for setting up events between local BAYC communities and Yuga Labs!

One of the five Apes running for the Co-Lead position is FudMaster who wants to help Yuga Labs shape the future of BAYC LLC and try to bring Yuga Labs Co-Founder, Gordon Goner, into the BAYC Community Council fold.  

To find out more about FudMaster’s candidacy, his BAYC story, and why he’s the right Ape for this job, the Bored Ape Gazette reached out to him for an interview. Check it out below:

1. What's your Bored Ape story? What should the community know about you?

I ran into the BAYC for the first time one week after the mint and was instantly fascinated. I never purchased an NFT on OpenSea before, so one thousand dollars for a JPEG seemed like a lot of money. Over the next 2 weeks, I saw more and more people using them as PFPs. I had become obsessed and was constantly returning to OS to look at them. It took me some time to understand what it was, but after a while, I realized it was the ape "bored" attitude that made them so unique and special. So, one night I said, "Fuck it, let spend $1000 on a useless JPEG just because it is cool," and I pulled the trigger on my first ape.

That was the beginning of an amazing adventure into the Web3 space. I ended up purchasing 5 other apes for flipping but never flipped them. The community should know me for being the Co-Founder of the Bored Club Canada and Founder of the Bored Club Association (https://boredclub.org). The Bored Club Association is a trade association that connects 24 local BAYC communities together. The Association provides resources & tools about how to start and grow a BAYC local community. It offers various services like community best practices, access to experts, token gating & security resources, Discord bots, and automated news feeds distribution (Bored Gazette is one of our partners!) & many more. I’m currently working on finding funds for community operations& meetups."

2. What’s been your favorite moment of being a BAYC member?

"I would say that Apefest 2022 in NYC was the highlight for me. It was the first Apefest for a lot of us. The location and the vibe were incredible. Meeting face to face for the first time with all the ape friends I have made online was magical. It was like we all knew each other since forever. We also did a Bored Club Canada meetup, and 1/3 of the club was present. Canada is a very big country, so except for the local crew in Montreal, I never had met with any other members from our club even if we talked on Discord daily. Shaking hands and thanking the Founders for everything they did for us was also a very special moment."

3. What would you like to accomplish as the BAYC Council Co-Lead?

 

The primary mission of the Council is to “help the new BAYC LLC in shaping the future of the Club”. Last year, the Council was more about grant approvals. I think year 2 is more about building the operational structure of the Council. The main complaint you hear from people leaving the club is probably that they don’t recognize themselves in the club anymore or that Yuga is now VC & operating like a Web2 company. I believe this is our chance to shape the Council into that Web3 operational structure that everybody wants where the Council would be the community operational arm of BAYC LLC working hand in hand with them. Like I stated in my campaign program, my first mission as Co-Lead would be to get Gordon into the Council. I understand his condition, but we could work with whatever he can give us. I mean if he's ok enough to shitpost on Twitter, he should be able to listen to our ideas and provide feedback. Gordon is the most powerful and respected player in the NFT space. Having him on board would send a strong signal to the community that real changes are coming and that the Council is not just a funny thing. Regarding the structure of the Council, we will build small committee around each Council role to assist in the development of their project. Obviously, the other Council nominees would be perfect candidates, but I think each Council member should be allowed to build their own team. Small unit built from the best and most knowledgeable members of our community should be able to execute and deliver projects at a world-class level.

I'll also work with Josh, the other Co-Lead, to establish the future required roles of the Council. The roles should come naturally from the needs of the community, but I can already think of a few: -A Concierge/members relation: If we are a club, we need an onboarding service for new members. Because right now, people are buying an expensive JPEG and they are pretty much left in the dark with no clue about where to start. -A Chief Vibes Officer: I call it Vibe but it's more about member satisfaction. The role responsibilities could range from getting feedback & ideas from the community to organizing surveys to quantify the BAYC vibe or collecting complaints from members. -A Charitable role would definitely be a needed one too. Ape Strong Together should not just be buzzwords on Twitter. As a community, we have the power to support a member going through a hard time or to have a significant impact on social causes. I think defining what we want to be as a club is also critical. Having something like a "State of the BAYC" where we could gather all feedback and ideas from the community to make sure our vision for the club is aligned is probably something that could be very valuable to organize. Over that, my main priority would be to focus on building the membership value of the club. This is why the floor is bleeding and OG leaving right now. The incentives to spend 60K to join the club are not high enough. The days of airdrop are gone and Apefest alone is not enough to justify the price. So how are we going to do that? In my opinion, the community is by far the largest value of BAYC. But as of today, we still don’t have a list of all the members, even less a way to communicate or validate who really is a member or not. I have been advocating and working on the project of a directory/mobile application that would put all of us in contact. The truth is, we all know each other’s but we don’t really each other. You don’t know that I collect signed albums, pinballs or that I have experience with copyright laws. The directory would fix that. There are doctors, lawyers in the club, experts in many fields that would gladly help you if you have a question or need help. Pretty much every celebrity who purchased 2 years ago is still part of the club. So the directory would be able to leverage that value. There are people paying +100K a year to be in a golf club and they don’t even golf, only for the network of contacts. BAYC is the largest network of W3 entrepreneur. Just that alone should justify the price way higher than the current floor if it's properly structured. I also want to empower local communities. Why? First because everybody is local somewhere but also because there’s nothing stronger than meeting IRL face to face with other apes. There’s a lot of apes who told me their local community is the highest value they get out of their ape. They also told me that if it was not for their local community, they would have left the club long time ago. Local communities are a very strong element of retention. By building a network of local communities, we will create value for each member of the club and have access to contacts & resources worldwide. I could talk for hours about other ideas for the club. However, I’m not alone with ideas about how to put the club back on track bit I can assure you that we will listen to all of them and assist in every way we can to make them a reality.”

4. What makes you the right Ape for this role?

“First of all, I’m very good at implementing structure and I feel this is core to the current state and what needs to be done for the Council. I have been able to position the Bored Club Canada as one of the leading communities in the space and I have been able to build the Bored Club Association without any resources or financing. I think those are proofs about my capacity to execute and to rally the community together. I’m the community guy. I spent the last two years building the Bored Club Association and I’m already connected to Founders from all local communities. This will make it very easy for me to gather community feedback and execute projects with any of them. In real life, I’m an entrepreneur who has built and sold multiple companies. I’m financially independent and I already dedicated all my time to BAYC communities. I have experience with business in online advertising, affiliate marketing operations, social & digital media companies. I also have legal experience with corporate laws, copyright, and intellectual property. All this various field of expertise will allow me to provide valuable insight to the other Council members and with the relations with BAYC LLC. But more than an entrepreneur, I’m a visionary and a doer. I have a clear vision of what needs to be done to put back BAYC on track and to bring the Community Council to its next level. 

5. Do you have anything else you’d like to add or say? 

"This election is critical. It should not be about a popularity contest. We need to bring back the club on track as soon as possible. I have a solid plan for it so vote for me and I’ll make it a reality.”

The window to vote in the BAYC Council election is currently open and Apes can cast their votes without a wallet connection via Tokenproof between now and March 15th at 11:59 P.M. PT here: https://bayccouncil.tokenproof.xyz

The Bored Ape Gazette has reached out to all the Apes running for BAYC Council and is working to bring you interviews with everyone. Stay tuned for updates!