The MultiversX ecosystem is full of great projects backed by founders and teams with inspiring and exciting stories. Once a week, we sit down with some of these individuals to ask about their projects, so you can learn more about them and get better insights into these fantastic initiatives.

In today’s interview, we spoke with Lukas S. (Chessucation), the co-founder of On Chain Smokers

Hello; thank you for taking the time to chat with us. First, please tell us more about yourself and your background.

My name is Lukas but I am in the process of coming to terms with the fact that I will forever be known as “Chess” around here. I’m one of three co-founders of On Chain Smokers, a membership program that connects businesses with their communities by leveraging Blockchain technology.

Before ending up in this exciting new world of web3 in late 2021, I served as the Managing Director of a small non-profit organization, worked in the music industry, in advertising, and ran clubs and bars in New York City. I also occasionally taught chess to kids.

Can you talk to us about your project, On Chain Smokers? What is the project about and what are your goals?

The On Chain Smokers Membership Program is connecting businesses working in the cannabis industry with their communities. We offer in-store and online benefits to our members and a new way for our partners to connect with the global cannabis community and take advantage of cutting-edge technology.

Provide a blockchain use case to members of the traditional customer base of cannabis businesses and introduce a new audience to the benefits and opportunities of blockchain technology and Web3.

Create tangible value by connecting real businesses with the crypto community and provide benefits both online and in physical locations worldwide.

Bring together the cannabis community through a variety of educational programs, events, and connect like-minded people around the globe.

Who is the team behind On Chain Smokers, what is their background and how did you meet?

When my partners Willem and William (yes, this leads to confusion all the time) approached me, they had already known each other for many years, both coming from the Dutch Coffeeshop scene. Their initial idea was to create a loyalty program for Toermalijn, a shop in a small Dutch town called Tilburg. 

After a few initial conversations that got me excited about the prospect of developing an NFT project with an actual real-life use case, I booked a ticket to Barcelona where they lived. We spent the next days and nights discussing the possibilities for the program that eventually became the On Chain Smokers Membership Program.

Now, we are a team of eleven people consisting of veterans from the cannabis and blockchain industry, as well as our art and design team. With new partner locations soon to be announced, we will also continue to expand our team.

We can see on social media that you are doing some very cool in-person events, where new members can mint their membership NFTs in-person. Tell us a bit more about these events?

We have done a number of events with the main goals to onboard new users to our membership program and the blockchain. The most spectacular one (so far) was the On Chain Smokers launch at our first partner location, Coffeeshop Toermalijn in Tilburg. In four days, we signed up around 1000 members, the vast majority with no prior experience and very little knowledge about Blockchain or NFTs. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and of those who had been suspicious, many came back later after taking home some educational material we had prepared.

We also did several other events, most of them launches at our partner locations and other cannabis-related events. Another highlight was live-minting with the MultiversX and Blockchain community during the X Day conference in Paris.

OCS wants to change the way companies interact with their clients, can you expand on how you aim to achieve this?

Our project is about creating a global membership program that we think can transform the way that companies interact with their clients: Not just as consumers, but as partners.

We believe that in the future, businesses will have to find new ways of engaging with their communities and that they will have to rethink their revenue models fundamentally. To create meaningful relationships with customers, they can improve existing services by gathering valuable feedback, cooperate with the community in the creation of new products, and involve them in strategic decisions through governance systems. By leveraging web3 technology, On Chain Smokers is giving the cannabis industry the tools to lead this transformation.

What are the benefits of joining your “club”?

OCS Members enjoy a range of benefits both at physical locations and online, ranging from in-store perks like a special product selection and discounts on products to educational blockchain and cannabis content, interviews and AMAs with industry professionals, as well as real-life and metaverse events and much more.

We are still in the “closed alpha” phase of the project and are working on a lot of cool new initiatives at the same time. We are very excited to build, release, and share a lot of great programs and products with our community along the way.

How do you see wider adoption? What is missing from the actual work we undertake to make it happen?

First and foremost, there are not enough products that entice newcomers to join the space. If the value proposition of the crypto space are highly speculative assets, it will forever remain a playground for gamblers. We need to make use of the full spectrum of advantages blockchain and web3 technology offer and build compelling products that make a tangible difference in peoples’ lives. This is one of the main reasons we started On Chain Smokers.

What is the “general” feeling about crypto and web3 from people that don’t know a lot about it yet when you do live events?

At our events, we have been surprised by the positive reactions. However, part of the excitement that people feel at our events and about OCS seems to be that it is their first time encountering an application of the technology that they can appreciate.

If EGLD gained $1 every time someone at OCS events said “This is the first time I understand why Blockchain and/or NFTs can be useful!”, we all would probably be millionaires by now. As long as we do not provide clear use-cases and lower the threshold to interact with the technology, people will – and frankly speaking should – remain skeptical.

Thank you for your time and explanation. Do you have anything you want to add?

We are grateful for the opportunity to build a meaningful project alongside such a talented team, with great partners from different industries and most importantly, with the support of an amazing community. We are always looking for honest feedback to learn to improve our offerings and are happy to answer any questions you may have!

Thanks a lot for your time Lukas (Chessucation), and best of luck with your project!

If you have any questions for him, please comment below.

Chessucation

On Chain Smokers

Interview: On Chain Smokers

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