Five reasons why you cannot sell your NFTs

Five months ago, I decided to sell my first NFT, a piece of cake for my birthday, on my NFT platform. Since then, I sold more than 100 NFTs, sometimes for celebrities, other times for smaller creators or for my own conference (which sold out three times).

I talked with every big Hollywood talent agency and I saw them selling less than my birthday cake.

These are the reasons why they (and you) fail to sell your NFTs.

You think the platform matters

When you go to Amazon, do you go and browse their homepage to find what is new or are you searching for something specific?

This is exactly how people buy NFTs.

People don't go to OpenSea and say "oh this little monkey from a creator I never heard of before is on sale for 10 Ether, I need to buy this right now".

99% of NFT sales happen by sending people directly to the NFT page.

You have higher chances of selling NFTs outside of OpenSea/Rarible/etc as your buyers won't get distracted by random NFTs. See all projects that make consistent sales. CryptoPunks, Hashmasks, Mekaverse - all of the big NFT projects have custom pages for their drops. Of course, if you want to resell you need to end up on OpenSea but don't be delusional thinking that anyone could find your NFT in this (well) sea of NFTs.

And you would have known that but ...

You haven't bought any NFTs

You need to buy NFTs to understand how to sell NFTs. I met artists with millions of followers that wanted to sell NFTs and didn't have a Metamask wallet. Guess how many NFTs they sold? Less than my birthday cake - and usually zero.

Every single NFT I bought was because someone from my community recommended that I should check it out. And all NFTs that made me money where bought outside of OpenSea (ok, I made some Ether by trading on OpenSea).

To me, trying to sell NFTs without ever buying one is like trying to be a soccer coach without knowing soccer (Ted Lasso is the exception. Also he is a fictional character).

I am not saying go and spend all your money buying random NFTs. But you need to get involved in projects and communities, see how things work and understand how and why people make money and why you end up having only 4 views of your profile.

The biggest example is influencers trying to sell to their followers and end up making only "pocket money" because their followers have NO idea how to setup a wallet or what Ether is. I guarantee you the biggest talent agencies with their infinite connections and budgets have ZERO idea how to make any NFT sales.

Having more followers or being famous means shit in the Metaverse

Which brings us to the next reason on why no one buys your stuff:

You have no Community

If you are following me on social media, you know by now that I am a true Metallica fan. I am the person who drove 4 hours to go and watch Metallica perform in a Drive-in. I am a true fan.

Community is the biggest asset any creator or company has. It cannot be copied. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be bought.

Followers are not Believers

The random integers you see on your social profiles that represent how many "followers" you have are just a vanity metric. How many of them are actually going to travel to see you? How many share your values?

To sell NFTs (and sell consistently) you need people to share your values. An excellent example is SuperNfty, an amazing creator that has a very active community. You should try and copy something that is true and sustainable. No one became Metallica in a day (or Justin Bieber if that's your thing).

I'll do another post about how to build and maintain your community because there is so much stuff and tools to cover in just one post.

But let's move to my favorite reason:

Price

Most of the creators I met, have no idea how much they should price their first NFTs at. They go from 100 Ether (seriously) to zero and end up not making any sales. These creators are usually the same people that call NFTs a scam.

Do you want me to tell you the price of your NFT? I don't even need to see it. It is zero. Yes, zero Ether. You put the work to create something but you haven't put the work to honor your community. Instead you are trying to rip them off.

If you want people to buy your stuff, you need make sure that your NFTs are 10x more valuable than you price them. If your NFTs have no value (because no one knows who you are or your vision) then you are doing a disservice to your believers (you see? - I didn't say followers).

If people can't make money by buying and selling your NFTs you will never survive in this space.

Trying to sell on a different chain

After you made zero sales on the Ethereum blockchain, you decided to go to Solana. Slow clap. I admire your Entrepreneurial spirit but no.

Build value, serve your belivers. Stop saying bullshit to yourself.

And because I might have been too harsh on you already, here are two extra reasons:

You are a famous "traditional" artist so you should make an NFT of your art

No. Just no.

You are a photographer and have an interesting photo to sell.

See above.

Coming Next: Selling your first NFT, step by step

- Wed 20 October 2021