FAQ
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ny What does the name mean?
‘nzemi is a proto-latin word, common to some dialects and from the same base as the Italian word “insieme” In English, it means “together” we chose the name for a few reasons…
- To honor Arbo’s Calabrian heritage, without using a word like ‘ndrangheta which sounds really cool, but has some negative connotations, being the name of the infamous Calabrian Mafia.
- The project is about multiple projects, creators, and business models coming together under one common parent company. ‘nzemi is the glue that will hold all these projects together.
- I really like words that start with an apostrophe. It’s just cool. But, you can spell it with or without the apostrophe if you want. We don’t mind.
What is the first project?
The first project that we are launching is the ‘nzemi DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). There will be a two-tiered membership structure, with limited supply of NFTs released. Anyone holding an NFT will be a DAO member and have OG access to all of our future projects and collaborations along with a number of additional benefits, including event access, discounts, voting rights, airdrops, and early access to all future projects. Some of the potential benefits are explained here in the FAQ, more will be spelled out in detail on the whitepaper, and yet more may be voted on and/or implemented by DAO members after we have sold out.
Will there be generative pfp art?
Yes! We thought about just providing a membership card, but art is in our blood, so the DAO membership will be linked to art created by our founder and potentially other artists in the group.
So, is this just another pfp project then?
No! there are many pfp projects out there that are either representing a brand, or have some kind of a DAO element to them. There are some really great examples of projects in these categories, and in some ways ‘nzemi may be similar, but even if you like our NFTs and use them as PFPs (which we hope you do!) That is not the value here. We are a membership club first, and the pfp nft is just a little added benefit.
What will ‘nzemi do?
The purpose of ‘nzemi is to bring together, direct, and invest in multiple projects across multiple industries with a shared focus on pushing innovation, providing shared community and creator ownership, and driving a triple bottom line focus on people, planet, and profits.
Some of these projects will be created by the DAO or DAO members, some will be collaborations with our partners, and some will be direct investments in other web3 or IRL projects or causes.
How is the business structured?
In order to support these goals, ‘nzemi effectively is an entity consisting of three (and eventually four) parts:
- ‘nzemi DAO: The DAO is the first and primary entity, and will manage the treasury along with ownership to all IP rights. Direct investments in other web3 projects either created by ‘nzemi or by our members will be made through the DAO.
- ‘nzemi corp: The C-corp will be set up initially as a fully owned entity of the DAO, and will be used for our IRL ventures including real estate acquisitions. In the event that RE assets may be leveraged with debt, this layer will protect the DAO treasury from these liabilities. A 30% equity pool in the C Corp will be reserved for outside investors who may want to participate in future deals.
- ‘nzemi consortium (the family): Not officially incorporated as a business, the idea is that ‘nzemi includes a consortium of members beyond those that are officially DAO members. At the most obvious level, anyone who holds an NFT from one of our future projects will be part of the family even though they may not be part of the official ‘nzemi DAO, and will have benefits from being in the network in addition to the benefits provided by the specific NFT that they purchased. Likewise, any artist, entrepreneur, or philanthropic organization that we partner with becomes part of the family.
- ‘nzemi org: In the future, we envision starting a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting innovations that drive positive social and environmental impact.
Is there a give-back strategy?
Yes! It is extremely important for us to make sure that everything we do has a positive impact on the world. We believe that art and creativity in and of itself accomplishes this, but in addition to promoting creativity and art, there are some tangible impacts that we would like to achieve. While the specific goals may change over time as the needs of our society change, there are two issues that we are very passionate about, and seek to have a direct impact on:
- Reducing wealth inequality – with a particular focus on racial wealth inequality in the US
- Developing and promoting more integrative forest management systems that can allow for the better preservation, expansion, and sustainable utilization of forest ecosystems across all regions.
Who is the team?
Currently, we are a team of one, although there are ongoing discussions with a number of advisors, and the team will be growing soon. ‘nzemi is the brainchild of our founder and CEO, Arbo, and was conceived to provide a unified platform for his varied art business interests, including active ongoing business activities and conceived future activities. With that said, while Arbo is contributing his portfolio of projects, ‘nzemi is intended as a community driven DAO. While the initial vision and plan is being put in motion, the additional DAO founders and members will all have the ability to contribute to the direction or create their own projects within the broader ecosystem that we will support as a collective. It is our belief that a diverse membership with diverse passions will outperform any top down hierarchy, as long as we provide the right mechanisms to allow for effective collaboration and execution.
Arbo is the nom d’Arte of Kris Schumacher, a New York based artist, entrepreneur and business executive. He has a fine arts degree from Pratt Institute, with a specialty in Film and Media, along with an MBA from Babson College.
Kris grew up in a 250 year old, semi-off-grid farm house in the woods of New England, where his father turned an old dairy farm into a sustainable tree farm. He spent his afternoons working with his father to steward the native forests and spent his weekends exploring brooks, swamps, and cow pastures.
While he currently lives in the suburbs of Long Island with his wife and two children, the connection to the forest has always been a core piece of who he is, and a core piece of his art.
Kris’s career includes 5+ years as the tech director for a special effects house in NY, where he built equipment and wrote image processing algorithms that were used in hundreds of indie films, including some you may have seen, like “Super Troopers,” “Open Water” and “New Rose Hotel”
He has 17+ years in corporate management for international conglomerates, where he specialized in pricing econometrics, change management, contract negotiations, and predictive analytics.
He also has over 11 years in startups, including time as a consultant, mentor, and/or fractional CFO for multiple startups and investors, where he has helped to secure numerous investments, joint ventures, and acquisitions. His current primary ventures include an outdoor wood products manufacturing company and New Majority Capital – a private equity fund dedicated to using small business acquisition to reduce the wealth gap by helping transition profitable small businesses owned by retiring baby boomers to a more diverse population. Integration of the NMC fund and the ‘nzemi DAO is a definite possible future scenario, along with participating in royalty share or licensing deals with other portfolio companies.
Other founding members & advisors (details TBA):
TBD – artist and illustrator
TBD – blockchain finance specialist fintech entrepreneur
TBD – community builder
TBD – web3 developer
TBD – head discord mod
TBD – franchising expert
Interested in Joining the team? CONTACT US HERE
What is an NFT and why are you creating them?
If you don’t know what an NFT is, but have heard about people making thousands or millions of dollars from buying NFTs, I can not stress this enough: AN NFT IS NOT A WAY TO GET RICH, NOR IS IT EVEN REALLY AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE.
Owning an NFT is not like owning shares in a company, or buying a mutual fund. The NFT is a collectible, like a trading card or a painting, except that holding this collectible can also provide the owner various benefits that they can get from being part of a private club.
Unlike an equity investment – which you can make privately if you are an accredited investor or through a platform like we-funder if you aren’t – when you buy an NFT, it is considered sales revenue for the company. This means there are different tax implications, but the biggest implication is that buying the NFT should not give you any expectations of making money. If the value raises and you sell the NFT for a profit, that’s all well and good, but it is just as possible that the value drops, even if the ‘nzemi DAO performs well and generates other value for holders, since the secondary market price is set by you as a holder, and by supply and demand and other macro trends, like the price of ETH or even energy prices – all unrelated to our performance meeting our roadmap.
Owning an NFT from our first project will give you a membership in the DAO. There are some similarities between holding a DAO membership and holding shares in a company, but it is different in several critical ways that are important for you to understand.
Some DAOs are structured in a way that they may be considered a security by the SEC. In our case, the ‘nzemi DAO is a private club, and is not a security. This means that while the DAO treasury may make investments that provide utility and value for DAO members, there is no expectation of individual DAO members realizing profits simply from holding. The nuances of this, and how it plays out in some of our planned business models will be spelled out in detail in our white paper, but the bottom line is that we will seek to maximize the benefit distributed to holders, but always in consultation with our legal experts on how to do this without crossing over into registered security territory.
If you understand NFTs, you know this already, but if this is new to you it may sound more complicated than it needs to be. The reasons that we are choosing to create an NFT – as opposed to doing a we-funder campaign or something – are many:
- We can create true community ownership and engagement
- We cut out the middleman
- We have the ability to manage complex licensing in innovative ways.
- We can push new creative possibilities in the realm of art
the ‘nzemi DAO
What do the different DAO membership tiers get you?
Common tier: This is the membership tier that the majority of the holders will have, as it will be more affordable to buy in to, and there will be a larger supply. The common membership tier will provide:
- Voting rights. Each NFT you hold provides 1 vote in all DAO decisions
- Access to WL for ‘nzemi projects: Anyone holding an NFT receives automatic WL access to any future project launched directly by the ‘nzemi DAO. access will be provided to members of the ‘nzemi family that do not have DAO membership only after the ‘nzemi DAO members have been afforded the chance.
- Collaborative projects within the ‘nzemi network that provide WL access to our members will be raffled off to DAO members.
- Staking your NFT will generate tokens that can be used within our ecosystem.
- Merchandise discounts
- IRL benefits: including event tickets (including foraging classes and artist retreats in Arbo’s forest), overnight stays at DAO owned real estate (including – maybe – off-grid tiny homes in the forest or maybe a or maybe a sustainable eco-village in India?), discounts at partner organizations (do you like sustainably produced chocolate, for example?).
Premium tier: There will be a much lower supply of premium tier memberships. All of our founding partners hold this membership tier, along with anyone who chooses to buy in at the higher price. The supply of premium membership NFTs is limited to 500 and prices are expected to start at around 1.5 E
Holding a premium membership NFT provides all of the same benefits as holding a common tier membership, with the following differences:
- Voting rights: Each premium NFT provides as 10 votes
- Premium membership holders will get a double WL allocation (if the common tier gets 3 NFT per wallet, premium holders will get 6 per wallet)
- 10% of all WL allocations from partner projects will be set aside for a premium holder raffle.
- 10X token generation
- potential members that are accredited investors and can complete a KYC form are welcome to contact us directly for more opportunities.
Staking and tokenomics
Yes, there will be staking, and you will be able to accumulate tokens. The details for this will be upcoming in the whitepaper and further flushed out as we roll out the plan, but the general idea is that tokens will be redeemable in the ecosystem for a wide variety of benefits, including physical products and services, irl events and experiences, and digital art or other assets.
How else may the DAO provide value for the members?
While all of the specific activities are yet to be decided, and many more may be voted on by the DAO members, we envision a few specific ways that the DAO can provide value for members:
- A percentage of the DAO treasury may be used to periodically sweep the floor of the project, effectively reducing the supply of listed NFTs and increasing the market price for everyone
- When appropriate, the DAO may vote to burn excess supply of tokens in order to further ensure balance between supply and demand.
- The DAO will invest in other assets that will increase in value and provide more liquid assets to fund value creating ventures. This may include:
- Real Estate and cash flowing business assets
- Other high value or high potential NFT assets
- Royalty share agreements from other businesses
- Licensing and franchising deals
- Development and/or purchase of technology to facilitate collaboration between members
How can you buy into the DAO?
We will have a pre-sale and maybe a public minting process, but we want to avoid the hype cycles that are common on a lot of projects, and our thought is to do this a bit differently.
Before our contract and art is ready, anyone who purchases art from any one of Arbo’s existing collections will receive 1 NFT airdropped for free for every piece that they hold.
The first 250 members to join our Discord, follow our Twitter account, and fill out the free mint application form will get 1 free mint (just pay gas), and will have the ability to mint up to 3 more at 10% off the public mint price, in addition to any free airdropped NFTs that they may receive for holding art.
These first 250 OG members will be able to invite more members who will all get whitelisted for the private sale, and additional whitelist allocations will be given out to the community through contests and engagement (not grinding or based on being the first to click a link).
The Premium membership will be limited to 500 NFTs at 1.5E, and will stay open until sold out. Premium membership mint access will be limited to a registered list of accounts, but will be 1 per wallet and open to anyone who requests it.
The precise timing, price, and collection size will be determined with input from the core 250 OG members.
Are there any plans already in motion?
Art – a metaverse gallery will be one of our first initiatives. Ultimately, we may have galleries in multiple metaverse spaces. We’re also planning multiple irl galleries and a royalty sharing economics system for sharing profits from selling prints and other merchandise automatically. At our forest estate, we are planning a permanent outdoor art installation, where NFT holders can control some of the elements remotely, and/or get access to video displays and webcams.
Real Estate – Arbo’s forest estate is a central hub for ‘nzemi. depending on how successful we are in raising funds for our initial collection, we are planning to develop off-grid tiny homes, luxury treehouses, and/or yurts in the forest where we can host a wide variety of activities including artist and yoga retreats, foraging classes, and research on agroforestry techniques and technology. we also have access – through a close partner collaboration which ‘nzemi DAO will have a part ownership in – to a large mountaintop property with ocean views south of Mumbai India, where a sustainable eco-village is planned. If this development comes to fruition in the future, DAO members will have first right of refusal to purchase plots in the community, and will also have access to overnight stays at the property.
General Business – some businesses that are already a part of the ‘nzemi network to various degrees include a manufacturer of outdoor wood structures, a fashion-tech company, a bean-to-bar chocolate producer, and a platform that provides education, financing, and support for small business acquisition. we are considering a number of tie-ins here, and are most excited about the possibility of extending our business education / incubation process to ‘nzemi members. By leveraging our considerable ties to investment professionals, we can create a pathway for members who have ideas that need funding to perfect their business plan and present it not only to the ‘nzemi investment committee, but to our broader network of professional investors. These ideas can be in any field, and are not limited to web3 or for-profit businesses.
How will revenue from the initial sale be used?
Salaries
Investment
Giveback
Tech
Next product launch
Free airdrop to holders
Buyback pool
Wen Discord?
SOON! We’re building this organically, and intentionally slow to start. Expect Discord to go live when the ‘nzemi twitter account has 250 real human followers.
Wen mint?
TBD. We want to mint by May, but this will depend on the community, which may also depend on general market trends and what is happening with crypto, NFTs, and the world… Our strategy is also going to be open to debate, so once discord is open, we’ll be looking for feedback and help on getting this right.
I have another question that’s not answered here.
Great! We’d love to hear it! Ask the question in the form on the bottom of the page and we will answer ASAP