GaryVee x William Wade: From the edge to entrepreneurship [UNCENSORED]

0:00Alright Vayner Nation, a very exciting podcast. I'm sure you're seeing it in the title. Got a great entrepreneur with me talking about a fun project that we did together and then just kind of talking about him and his journey and the game. And so what most drives me to want to do this podcast is I think he represents all of us. Like it's just a real story. All of us on the other side of this podcast are fucking living, trying to figure it out, trying to build, trying to grind. Every one of us has our advantages and our vulnerabilities. and I'm excited about this podcast. So, my man, how are you?

0:35I'm great. Thank you for having me. Why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you do? I'm Will from Canvas, Canvas MKTG, founder of Pocket Mounts, and I'm a collector. I'm a collector, was always that, the nerdy black dude, you know, like Pokemon. But growing up in the town that I grew up in, like that stuff was frowned upon. How old are you now, Will? I'm 37. You know, it's crazy, I'm 49. Isn't it crazy that like, to your point, because I grew up in lower middle class, very urban areas most of my life, it's crazy to watch comic, anime, like nerd culture penetrate not only white America, but black America.

1:26Yeah, yeah. Like the thought of like when you're 37? 37, yeah. Like the thought of when you were 12, especially in the kind of neighborhoods you grew up in, like for you to walk out with a Dragon Z hoodie, you would have got fucking clowned on. Yeah, and I did. And now it's the freshest shit in the game. Yeah, exactly. Does that blow you away to see like, are you happy for the 11-year-old dark-skinned kid who like can be nerdy? Yeah, they got a chance. They have an absolute freaking chance and I was a I had a chance to I just didn't know it and I remember the first like flip I ever made was with Pokemon cards when I would do things good And I would have to do a lot of things to earn five or ten bucks of course throughout the week to for my grandpa take me on Saturday to get a pack and I would stash hollows and save them and And there were kids that didn't mess with kids like me.

2:27But when I had Blastoise and I had Charizards, they had 80 bucks. They had 120 bucks. And my grandpa, you know, he was a coin collector. So he saw me doing this. So now he's like, let's go get a pack. You know what I mean? And like, let's go get a pack. See if we can get one of those Charizards for William Wong. And because, you know, we were I don't want to say I was feeding my family. But, you know, I was bringing in income when we were on food stamps. I tell people all the time, like, food stamps should not be on a card. There used to be, like, actual food stamps. And family members would send us down to the store with a food stamp to get, like, a piece of candy and get the cash change back.

3:09Yeah, that racket. You know, and so, yeah. Why don't you give context to everybody? Because I know your story, but they don't. Like, so where did you grow up? I grew up in Radford, Virginia. Beautiful family You know The Curry family That was our family And Steph and Seth Would come up Very often Sonia and Dale Would always bring them up To hang out with us And And get acclimated You know We weren't the rich kids We were the scrappy ones You know And we squabbled It wasn't no telling A lot of people Get that misconception Of Steph and Seth You know The light skin Soft kids But no they'll squabble up yeah and uh yeah you know we uh they would come hang out with us a lot and we're you know we're just close-knit family it's not like that today i hate that but you know as youngsters yeah we were super duper close cousin's life yeah how many were family um stephan sef sedale me uh then all the other aunts got kids you know mercedes lexus uh cameron brink yeah side brink and the the bogues would be around a lot like tie bogues so that would be your grandma and grandma's kids kids that was who you guys were right oh yeah yeah my my grandma's kid yeah my dad my dad it was my dad's generation yep Sonia and all that good stuff I think my grandmother and Sonia's mother are sisters.

4:46What is canvas marketing? No bullshit. It's, you know, it's real deal. And it's a search for high end art. I like to stay away from AI artists. You know, when I first got into it, you know, collaborating with people for sales and views. But now that it is where it is i try and keep keep it like lucky monk straight up no ai i love ai but for art you know not not so much with with what i'm trying to do i use ai every day i use it to build canvas in in uh and pocket mounts you know ask a lot of um detailed questions you know prompts i'm very familiar with it but for what is pocket for everybody's listening well this is the story i was working with this guy jesse ping to do a you know a regular smegular autograph deal for um it's like 100k deal and we got the autos and we never touched the project again because we got into this and so the first one i ever made i put it on solana because we're like crypto dgens in my group so we put on solana and Jesse was like, I was like, Jesse, you know, Charlie Lee, like, just forget about this project or the autos or the money.

6:12I don't care about the money. Just get me in front of Charlie Lee and let me tell him about this, you know, and I remember I went and I took it to him and, uh, you know, he just kind of looked at me and just like tapping his leg. He didn't really say nothing. And he asked me every question in the world to make me think that I had nothing. You know what I mean? Like, asked me very difficult questions. And then he said, well, you know, this is cool. But if it was on Bitcoin, it might interest me. And so. The 20 ordinal thing came in. Exactly. Then he was like, I know a guy named Danny. And maybe you guys can connect.

6:49He introduced me to Danny. Danny Yang, founder of OCM. Yep. and Danny Yang he inscribed the first 10 ,000 ordinals yep uh on the block on bitcoin so what we started doing he was like I don't have any monkeys because uh we all we sold them all after I told him about the idea and so he's like you know what I don't believe with you I'm gonna double back and start buying these monkeys back on chain monkeys right yep the on-chain monkey ordinals we started buying them back yep and we started turning them into physical products made out of uh true view glazing is what it's mounted with okay and if you take your phone right now and just wave it around that on chain monkey yep you will see that danny yang has made a dual inscript no camera just wave the yeah yeah just waving around there and it'll pop up you will see that Danny Yang has dual inscribed these OCMs.

7:52There we go. And it would be really hard to fake this with the inscription leading to the blockchain. And it shows the family of where that particular monk has derived. And I think that this is the way that all NFT should be. Everything should be tangible. I like the Rosetta Stone effect that, you know, after thousands of years after that has deteriorated, that you can still go back and see what it was. But as I think it should be physical to start. Right. So you're a big proponent of the concept of both digital and physical collectibles being tied together. And the digital for the simple fact of authentication.

8:46Of course. The authentication is done at the inception. I mean, there's a major, as we're filming this, there's a major devastating issue in sports memorabilia right now. Where one of the biggest, if not the biggest, I've just seen the headlines, so I haven't gone deep. But there's a substantial hundreds of millions of dollars fraud memorabilia situation happening in the sports memorabilia world. And that leads to my second gift. Please. That's very cool. So check that auto out and tell me if you think that could be faked. No, because that autograph was authenticated at the inception. Is this also at the create?

9:22Absolutely. At the creation of that piece of art. And when Steph signed, you know, right after he signed it, right after we made it, we authenticated it. So you don't have to send that anywhere else. You can. PSA will grade that. but as far as you knowing like, is this even real, you know, or is this a fake cert? Like we don't even put, like this is our cert. Yeah, but that's not needed in the world we're going into. It's not needed. Let's take a step back so people get to know you a little bit more. When did your fascination with the blockchain or the crypto universe start? Do you remember your day one?

9:59It came from I was working with an artist. We were making great money. And this was Canvas, at this point, in existence oh yeah okay we were on our year was this this is very recent yeah the pikemouth is only a few months old and you know the artist he put out a steph curry project without us which was weird after we had made five so i reached out to this lawyer um sean slattery and i was like seeing what to do right when i met him when you met the artist when i met the lawyer when you He was like, well, yeah, we can definitely handle this. But he's like, but I see something about you. And my brother is just like you.

10:43And and he said, my brother is almost like Peter Lick, which Peter Lick is this guy, the frontal mount. He's a photographer that has frontal mounted museum glass artwork. He said, you have to meet him. I know once you meet him, you're going to even forget about this guy and you're going to move on to something else. So after I met, we call him the master of mounts, MJ Slattery. After I met him, I was like, yeah, I'm done with that bull crap. I'm not focusing on that anymore. They got me. They got me. That's what pirates do. I'm locking in right here, right now with MJ. And we're going to create something that is unfuckwittable.

11:19And week after week, we've, you know, first it started with the archival ink. So, you know, we want to make like a museum masterpiece like Peter Lick, you know. When you go in there, it's beautiful. that gallery and that's what we wanted you to feel when you have these lined up on the stand and you know the way the museum glass just kind of like looks in the sun. Of course, of course. So everybody wanted to start with a little bit of context of Will. We're gonna get back to that in a minute. I'm gonna just jump in in the cross section. Adam Rips and I got to work with Will and his team at Canvas Marketing and team up on this drop that we have which is the V Friends manga series sticker with some incredible art that is done by their team and some Steph Curry autos.

12:11A lot of you know our Super Stickers product. There's a one of one dual auto of Gary Vee and Steph Curry. That's a lot of fun and that product has really been exciting. We've sold out and pre-sold it out. Obviously by the time you're listening to this podcast, it's out in the market. You can check out the Ebays and the Twitters and the Discords. But what really was exciting for me is understanding, I'm sure if you're listening, you can see I get excited about artists and people that are creative and try to bring a little bit of that old world and new world together. And I think what Canvas Marketing is doing is doing quite a bit of that.

12:50So real quick, because I don't think we fully nailed it. Well, Canvas Marketing represents artists? You're asking me. I don't need, like you're asking me. Well, I'm asking you because it's yours. That's a great question. Honestly, Canvas marketing is me hustling my ass off. Yeah. And making a way and a living for my family without selling drugs. Of course. Using drugs. My man. So, you know, I don't have a, because that's the life I came from. Of course. Where I'm right now, like I would think, like I was telling my boy Steve today, like, I can't believe all this. And he was like, man, shut the F up.

13:27You had it in you. You just never sat down long enough. Good for you, my man. Now I'm locked in. And what's incredible, this is why seeing your transition and understanding your story, it's so motivating. It's why I wanted you on the podcast. There's so many people. When you said, I can't believe this, I'm starting to lock in. When do you think you started to lock in? At what age? I had to learn by going to jail. Of course. That's a way to learn. If you look at my hands, all these scars. I was an intravenous heroin user. fentanyl just came around during corona and yeah i was on my way out and loved one of mine and died and um overdosed and yeah from there i was fighting for my life then when that person passed did that scare you in it dude i see it i see it i mean i see it yeah of course you know what i mean but you also saw it before like i mean you not face to face where like i walk in right and i i see the glassy blue eyes like it just haunt changed you yeah it messed me up and you know i called police immediately and after that um yeah i was fighting after that and i really was just laying down thinking like whatever happens happens if i do and when i do get a chance i'm gonna go out there and i'm gonna make sonia proud because i was i felt devastated that i let down you know the Curry's that had invested so much and I was out in San Diego because Sonia had spent Indale spent lots of money to send me to Michael's house three days there um suicide attempt I got 51 50'd they're like you're not getting your money back and um he can't come back here and you know then I was in like state institutions after that you know because I kept like she paid for me to go to another place and then i did what addicts do yep maybe two or three times yep and then after that um and i remember like cameron brink and them uh she was just a little girl and her mom shelling great came and um i should have locked in then you know because i was like man they came all the way down to see me there's no should yeah you were fighting i was fighting bro you were fighting yeah there's no should they came pick me up from my sober living and no they ubered me from my sober living to watch Cam play and my family was coming back.

15:57And then after so many relapses, I lost everybody. No, like Seth doesn't even answer me or Dale, you know, but Steph does. Aisha does, you know. And I went to high school with Aisha and she was always like, and I was like that black kid wore rebel flags, you know, like weirdo. Low key, you know what I mean? No real home training until the Currys like got me and then kind of like taught me everything. Like Dale taught me to match my belt with my shoes and how to tie a fishing hook and how to handle a 12-gauge and how to dove hunt. You know, like manly. Yeah. And Sonia taught me education. When they first got me, I was illiterate, a-literate.

16:41How old were you? I was like 14 years old. And, you know, at Radford, they just kind of let me go so I could play sports. I was great athletic yeah I was great athlete you know and I was a charmer I go in there and have a F and charm the teacher and then get some extra exactly so I would do a lot I know that game yeah yeah rip show this man my report card it's gonna it's gonna connect us yeah you can take it down oh yeah I've probably had a couple look like oh bro you're gonna like this this is all four years of high school check this out I love bringing this one out oh yeah that's ceramics

17:23tell them what i got in ceramics a c everybody got an a every single kid in that class got an a do you know how much work it takes to get a c in ceramics that's how bad by the way look all the way down do you see that number all the way at the bottom class rank all the way at the bottom of the paper 1.67 gpa class rank 243 out of 254 oh wow that was me yeah that was me for sure so i get it that was me yeah and the charm helped me get through to when people like how'd you graduate high school like charm yeah charm that that's how I know Seth can squabble because he would always call me retarded or because he knew that would hit me and then you would be like oh Adam you know Steph was always like sweet bro yeah I remember like my senior year I I'd done everything I needed to do to get a freaking scholarship yeah but I had to make like a C in Spanish yeah and um Steph was like taking Spanish at Davidson he came home I was like I'm gonna give him this take-home test he's gonna take it I'm going to college boom man he gets home and I give him the test and he's like wait I'm not gonna do that for you man he's like but I'll tell you what i will do it's like i'll sit here and study with you and i was like what i'm like ready to swap and i remember i was like bro you don't love me you know you don't love me man you know this is what i gotta do every summer coming into the end of school i would be grounded because i'd be feeling spanish you know like he could have helped me out and or he could have cheated for me of course gave me that but he sat down for hours he made a different test like he looked at the test made a test of the test, gave it to me, failed, made another test, gave it to me.

19:14It was like 11, 30, finally 12. He gave me the last one. He's like, you got it. Go. And that's like he left and I sat there with the damn test and I took it. I was panicked. I took it, turned it in and I passed. That's awesome. You know, like that's, that's, that's the dude he is. Yeah, it's nice. Tell me about on chain monkeys. Where did, how did that first hit your radar? Oh, wow. Charlie Lee, you know, Charlie Lee's been like an angel. You know, me and the master of mounts, we speak all the time and we wonder if we don't have Nakamoto in our camp. You know, it's the way we see some of these re inscriptions and some of the stuff we we know we're working with real crypto OGs.

20:05yeah that um and you know and then and collectors like charlie's collections on this world and so when we started doing this is about the same time the pokemon thing had happened with charlie's cards you know he had purchased some of those from the creator and um after that we kind of vowed like we're going to make sure that our guy doesn't get hit like that like let's let's change this so that people that love this stuff aren't being taken advantage of because that's what we're seeing we're seeing that there's a group of people that aren't like us that see people like us that genuinely love sports cards and memorabilia and then they want to bring their real world crap into our space and so we just want to make it so that our space is ironclad and if you're coming in you're not going to be able to just like dupe our people yeah i understand What about, where do you sit on the part of digital only art versus physical only art?

21:09And then finally, what you're passionate about is connecting to. Do you think there's a place for all three? Do you think it inevitably ends up what you're talking about? What's your gut tell you? Yeah, I think there was a place for all three. But after what happened with the digital NFTs, it's dead. like do you know that 124 million dollars worth of NFTs sold last week I'm not for me that's been like the shocking stat I've been telling everyone cause you're right the brand is very hurt but it's really that shook me too I looked it up last week and it was two weeks ago actually so we're into NFTs were speaking Ethereum right no actually it was a mix it was a I looked up all NFTs tons of Ethereum, some immutable because gaming.

21:58I mean, one of the biggest things that's about to happen with layer twos is driving down the cost of minting and all the gas fees with Solana, layer twos on Ethereum, immutable. I think one of the biggest places that have, remember for everyone who's listening, NFTs don't just mean collectibles, right? They're non-fungible tokens, they're contracts, they're memberships like we did with Flyfish. There are a lot of things. its ownership on the blockchain. Now that it doesn't cost the kind of money to make one or trade one, and they get down to the nano pennies, I think you're gonna see that axe or that gun that you buy on Fortnite.

22:40Think about the kids that are listening right now. You grew up on Minecraft or Roblox, then you went to Fortnite, then you went to Madden or 2K in your video game journey. When you left Minecraft to become a Fortnite kid, all those hundreds of dollars you spent buying up shit stayed stuck in a server-based, not blockchain-based world. You know how cool it's gonna be that the Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecrafts of the world in 15 years? Parents, you're gonna really like this part. It's kind of like, you know, the fact that you've played all those digital games, but you actually own those items, and then when you go to the next thing, you sell your ownership of that sword, that gun, that suit, that hat.

23:24These digital ownership thing, I think in video games, in gaming, is gonna be a major thing. And then there's the top 1%, just by the way, back to physical art. Rasheed Johnson's, the Jackson Pollock's, the Andy Warhol's, there's artists that are worth something. And then there's 99 % of art, 99.9 % of art, physical. Pictures that hang on walls all over the world are not worth a lot of money. I think the 1 % of NFTs, CryptoPunks being at the top, because they don't have to do anything, it's just history, I think will be something. And then I think finally, where people are gonna really learn about NFTs is authentication, just like you're doing, just like the blockchain, whether it's Ordinals or Ethereum or some blockchain that gets invented and wins.

24:11I think all of us with deepfake video, look, me, Steph, you, Rips, OnChain, Mike, everybody, but definitely for someone like Steph and me, millions of videos on the internet in the next 10 years saying shit we never said. Deep fake AI videos, right? How are we gonna prove that? That inscription combats it. That's right. No shit, that's why this is such a big deal. That's right. Type that in, ordinals. I got it. It's gonna pop up and it's gonna show you that. What people don't know right now is they're gonna interact with the internet, like we all do now, and we're gonna interact with the blockchain to prove that it's true.

24:45Exactly. That's right, that's it. Exactly, yes. That's the punchline. And I totally agree with that. Yep. And I just think a physical aspect should be bought to it because we don't connect necessarily, I don't connect with things that I can't taste, touch, feel, fear, and see. Let me ask you a question. For the most layman person, obviously, Steph, you sat down with this trading card. We have a trading card here if you're not watching, you're just listening. And Steph signed it. And then you put it. He signed a sheet of paper. He signed a metallic photo paper. Yep. And then I take that back to San Diego in the hood.

25:20Yep. And we take right off. Not the bougie part of San Diego. Right off Rosecrans near Les Girls. And we get down. But real quick, for the lamest person, if I just signed this and it wasn't me. It's not underneath the glass. Take that out of there and that autograph is mounted underneath the glass. I see. So it's archival. The whole piece is made to archive evidence. It's to archive my family's history. The metadata on it is to archive what Steph has done. But even, again, even if I put it under the glass, let's say I do this and try to replicate this. Can I inscribe this onto the blockchain? How are you going to mount?

26:00What do you mean mount? That's true view glazing. So you got to first. But you've got true view glazing, right? The master of mounts has access to this machinery. So, you know. Would anyone else? I'm just playing. I'm just trying to educate the masses. I don't think it's something that just like a regular smegler person could knock off. Yeah. One of the things I'm thinking a lot about is it never being in the ether. So one of the ways I think about physical and blockchain is you make these, there's an NFT connected to it, but this actually sits in a vault. Like, right? It just sits in a vault.

26:37And if I want it, then I burn the NFT and the physical comes to me. You can, okay, so the way - That's just a different, by the way, that's a totally different thing than you're doing. I'm just kind of, for the audience - But you can't do that. No, that's, yours is different. To your point. There's a wallet. Correct. There's a seed pod inside of there. Yep. So if you were to destroy the art, Yes. the seed pod contains the seed phrase to access your wallet. So they are truly - Yeah, understood. Understood. Just trying to give people some different angles out there. What about what's got you most excited artistically?

27:11let's take away the technology but take that that we know and we've established and everybody will check that out just in general as a creative person what are you seeing out there what are the trends what are you getting attracted to anything stand out for you? Manga Manga art yeah I'm loving the Japanese culture and I agree the get down Lucky Mong is a dog if you see how fast we work a lot of people don't know about our To Be Continued series this is very fresh that's what's here Tell them how to find it. Let's start with that. Well, you find it by being a Warriors fan and a Canvas fan and following us at Canvas MKTG.

27:52And after these Warriors games, I'm watching them right there with you guys. And after the game or during the game, I'll come up with a moment that we'll capture. and I'll tell Lucky Mon like, you know, turn this into this or, you know, and then he'll laugh and be like, all right, let's do it. And, you know, he's on a different time zone. So I'm up doing what I'm doing until like one or two. And then by the time I wake up six or seven, he's completed the art and he sent it to me and the master of mounts. So as soon as I wake up, I go straight down to San Diego and we get to working. Yeah, we get to work, man.

28:40You know, just some nerdy stuff. CNC with the glass and mounting and duck woven cotton backs and running through the diamond edge finish. And, you know, the very first one we did didn't look anything like that. Sure. You're really raining up. The chip was like this big or excuse me. We don't like to say chip. It's uninviting. We call it a tag, near field communication device. Which is why it pops up on your phone. Exactly. NFC chip everyone. And it leads to your order. NFC tag. Yeah. I got you. Exactly. I'm a salesman. I get it. That charm. Exactly, that charm. Before we get out of here, I want to know the, I like talking about origin stories.

29:20Origin of your nerdom. Was it Pokemon or was there something even before Pokemon that got you going? It was coins. It was my grandpa and his coins. Flea markets? man my grandpa just collected coins and as a kid i would sit on his lap and he'd pull this box out and like he wouldn't pull his box out until he's getting ready to go to bed after he ate his sardines and shit yeah it was a late night thing yeah and he would show me like susan bianney silver dollars and wheat pennies and then uh later in my days as i started dealing with crack and cocaine and stuff. Remember I took some work to my mother and she taught me the wheat penny trick.

30:02You know, she's like, you find one of these pennies made before this date. It's worth money. You heat the dope up and put it in there and then all the dope sticks to that penny. You know, so I had a factuation with collecting wheat pennies because of that. Man, love, no matter what my mom, I always love my mom. Of course. She loved me too. Addiction, It runs in the family. It's sick. It's a disease. I'm here to crush that. I'm proud of you, bro. And get rid of that. Stop the lineage. Man, let's sell this art. That's me and my son. I have so much respect for the West Coast Card Show and that guy, Jay, Costco, and his son, Costco, and FD, and his son, like, rolling whatever.

30:46Like, the dads in the hobby that are bringing their kids. Boom, dude. You know? That's going to be me. Y 'all get ready to pick on me and my little son because I'm bringing them into this. You know, I don't want him going into that. Of course. Like my grandparents. They tried to put me in the hobby and put me in the Boy Scouts. And all you fools out there made me feel like I was not black or a nerdy fool. I get it. And so now I want to sell drugs and be like the rappers. Of course you want to be cool. I get it. I remember. I remember. And, you know, Jay-Z, shout out to him because listening to him grow in music as I listen to him in the early days when I'm trapping and then listen to him grow and he's buying art.

31:29That definitely had an impact. Like, alright, if Jig is doing it then that's cool. That's it. That's right. I'm mimicking. Let's go somewhere very deep to wrap up. Given my knowledge of my audience let's talk to two different people here. You can really help. I'm going to give you the floor to help. First I want you to talk to the parents that are listening and the grandparents that are listening that have a child that's fighting. Leave them the hell alone. That was the hardest thing Sonia had to do. But she was, you know, and Steph too. When they would help me, I wasn't doing anything good with the help.

32:14So, you know, I know that was probably the hardest thing for Sonia to just be like, bro, you're effing up, you know? I wasn't gonna die or I wasn't gonna figure it out, but because of the things that they taught me as a youngster, I was able to get out. You had enough pieces there. Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's a really good call out to break that down for a lot of parents because I get a lot of these DMs and emails and I always think that it's important to talk from a place of living it. I have not had to deal with that level of addiction or even anyone in, me myself, nor anyone in my family. though the Russian uncles did love to drink the fuck out of alcohol.

32:54Russia did pound that alcohol. But, you know, I think for some parents, especially if their child goes through it, you know, if those first 10 years of a kid's life, you know, if you feel like you've been able to put the pieces in place, you know, to your point, trusting that that's enough to get them to the other side, that's almost impossible. That's like almost the most impossible. that was so heavy what you just said. Like, this is why I wanted to do this and thank you. When you just said emphatically leave them alone, that is the complete opposite of what every parent who's listening right now that is battling this would think.