Novel Wins Fast Co. Award
Novel is thrilled to be one of Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech.
As a winner of their metaverse and web3 category, Novel is dubbed the no-code platform “bringing NFT creation and sales to mere mortals.”
Beyond this, the staff at Fast Company describe the honorees as impacting every aspect of creation, distribution, monetization, and beyond. They write, “If you haven’t experienced any of this just yet, hang on: You will.”
The award ultimately speaks to the reality of Novel as a company:
Through the ups and downs of the bear market, Novel remains a trusted, high-value partner to every user — from relentless web3 builders to legacy brands taking the plunge into NFTs.
Year in Review: web3 Communities Continue to Build
Riding the bull run and popularity of 2021, NFTs and web3 technology saw continued adoption across the world. Hundreds of brands and creators launched NFT collections and millions were brought into the ecosystem with a shared interest in web3’s founding pillars of transparency and decentralization.
With the continued push, It’s no secret that the web3 ecosystem was saddled with consumer uncertainty — namely distrust in financial players and mechanisms — through the end of 2022.
Yet, even with more external noise than usual, the communities, brands, and people within web3 have continued building and yielding impressive progress.
The team at Novel is no exception.
At a high level, the bull case for Novel is providing value to web3 businesses seeking alternative pathways to greater revenue and user loyalty.
Novel’s Original Market: eCommerce and Web 2.0 Merchants
To understand where Novel is going, we look back to our origins.
One of our very first markets and ICPs was the eCom brand. That entailed businesses succeeding in Web 2.0 looking to us to introduce them to new tactics (mainly NFTs) for customer acquisition, building brand affinity, and more.
This trend continues, with long-time Novel users doubling down on web3 strategies as well as new merchants and creators entering the scene.
Web 2.0 leaders see the web3 vision — In Novel’s first seven months of operation, 50+ brands including Everlane, Starface, and Judy came aboard.
Creators leveraging web3 — Joe Horner (AKA the UK-based artist Flower Blocks) is just one creative using Novel to deploy his NFT art collection.
Sustainable returns via Novel — Brands like Frilliance continue to see impressive returns vis-à-vis loyalty by minting NFTs with Novel.
Novel’s Current Market: web3 Creators and Brand Communities
Today, Novel is crushing it by servicing existing web3 players and companies — from digital goods brands to NFT communities to DAO leaders.
Three of the big players working with Novel are:
Liquid Death — As an OG Novel client, Liquid Death has pushed NFT sales and community-building to new bounds. In the current bear market, they’ve run weeklong drops and contests to build hype and consistent transaction volume on OpenSea.
Clubhouse Archives — A mainstay of the digital luxury space, Clubhouse Archives involves NFT communities in designing and building high-quality apparel. The brand leverages Novel to token-gate voting on projects and purchasing final products.
Crypto Packaged Goods — CPG is another core web3 player getting creative with how they build end-user value. One NFT strategy powers a merch-like experience: Claim and redeem your CPG token for its correlating physical garment or accessory.
Overall, web3 builders are responding to the bear market with more originality and resourcefulness than ever before – and we enable them to do so.
Liquid Death creates VIP Experiences with the Novel App
Peering into 2023: Legacy Brands Enter the web3 Market
When you turn down the social media noise, you’ll see a steady influx of legacy commercial brands and industry leaders taking the plunge into web3 plays.
Whether it’s Tim Ferriss announcing NFT projects or Starbucks launching the beta of their web3 loyalty program, heavy-hitters are betting on the long-term, continued growth of this industry.
Even more, they’re turning to Novel as a trusted partner.
We’ve fielded inbounds and begun strategizing with impressive public companies, who describe Novel’s suite of plug-and-play, commercial functionalities as “mind-blowing.”
Beyond branded web3 projects, infrastructure players like Solana and Polygon have gained notable traction and popularity.
When Novel first detailed our decision to run our business on Polygon, it was still a Layer 2 solution that received skepticism from die-hard Ethereum users.
Fast forward, and within the last 4–6 months, names like Starbucks and Mercedes-Benz have not only entered the NFT game, they’ve also decided to build upon Polygon due to:
Scalability
Lower gas fees
Environmental concerns
Making Moves: Novel’s Development and Upward Growth
After going public with Novel on the Shopify app store, we’ve seen a constant uptick in installations — from eCom and web3 businesses alike. Novel is experiencing steady upward growth in the forms of:
An ever-expanding customer base
Positive brand reputation and word-of-mouth
More and more app interactions and Novel gallery accounts
Ultimately, when operators approach Novel to drive revenue and minimize the cost of NFT creation and deployment, our growth mirrors that of the entire web3 ecosystem.
Ismail Pathan, Director of Customer Experience at Novel, tells us how users have responded — even through current market conditions.
“Even in the past week or two, people have come to me and went, ‘Thank you for creating this app.’ There’s a lot of Novel appreciation from anyone operating in this space because they see the value it brings. They’re just extremely grateful.”
The Next 12 Months: VIP Experiences For All
As with any emerging business, the best untapped opportunities can often be found by simply listening to your customers. Over the course of the past 12 months, our team at Novel met hundreds of brands, dozens of marketing agencies, and thousands of prospects and customers.
Throughout these conversations - the sentiment was clear. While new brands are fearless in jumping into web3 - established brands are weary of their customers' sentiments on NFTs, crypto, and web3 tech.
More specifically, requiring their customers to engage in order to be able to participate with their brand.
While Novel has significantly lowered the barrier to entry to creating a wallet and minting an NFT to 3-clicks and 30 seconds - the broader market conditions are creating just enough risk for brands to remain hesitant about introducing their customers to NFTs. At the same time, multi-million dollar brands like Liquid Death have shown extreme interest in Novel’s core functionalities around creating experiences around exclusive products, discounts, and content leveraging VIP experiences to build loyalty and make their customers feel special.
In turn, we’re excited to open up VIP Experiences for all. Any brand can now use customer logins, and Shopify tags to curate unique experiences for their customers. These subscription and loyalty keys combined with typical web3 keys allow brands to share experiences across storefronts, allowing Novel to be the connecting bridge to web3 - rather than jumping into web3 headfirst with no infrastructure built out.
At Novel, we’re thrilled to play this pivotal “bridge” role for hundreds of brands and creators in 2023.
