Heartbreak Bear, a Singapore-based NFT (Non-Fungible Token) project by Revelation Marketing Group, recently announced the launch of its second season after selling out its genesis mint in just three hours.

Featuring its Gen 2 3D NFTs, the second season artworks were minted originally at 0.03 ETH with a limited supply of 1,888 HBBs. In a press statement, the project stated that its floor price has steadily risen to 0.074 ETH since its inception in October 2021. The total supply for Season 2’s NFTs will be limited to 7,089 3D Heartbreak Bears.

Season 2 holders will also gain priority access to more real-world utilities such as collectible figurines and customised merchandise.

Led by Ming Shuang Tan and Eugene Lim of Revelation Marketing Group, Heartbreak Break is a project that aims to provide artists with an avenue to showcase their craft and be acknowledged for their work in the digital space. The project described itself as “drawing parallels to the marginalised in the community” with an art concept that involves “strong imagery with some pop culture references to represent individuals battered down in society.”

Members of Heartbreak Bear communicate through an invite-only Discord group where they can access project development updates, upcoming collaborations, whitelists, Alpha information and many other exclusive benefits

“The existing OG community was small but extremely tight knitted. Daily nights of voice chat within Discord, meet-ups in real life, learning about crypto and NFT trading were just some of the many engagements that still exist till this day,” Tan says.

“After observing the (Crypto/NFT) space for some time we noticed that in order for Heartbreak Bear to progress and achieve more to benefit the holders of our NFT, we needed to treat Heartbreak Bear as a brand instead of a project. This is why we are constantly innovating ideas to bring real-world utility to our holders.”

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In this interview, Tan shares to e27 the secrets behind growing a strong community to support an NFT project.

Starting with the bear necessities

The history of Heartbreak Bear began when Tan and Lim began to get drawn into the NFT space in 2021. By the time, there was great scepticism about the concept with many of their friends suspecting NFTs to be a scam. But both Tan and Lim have a strong belief in the idea, so they started Heartbreak Bear as a closed community to help Singaporeans learn about NFTs and how it works through a community

The idea of Heartbreak Bear itself came from one of their staff in the media production company.

“When we thought about what to draw, she said she wanted a cute bear from the Minion movie. It being a teddy bear kinda fit our cause of supporting mental health because when we relate to teddy bears, we thought about them being abandoned after the child grows up,” she explains.

Tan goes on to explain how every bear started out with “their hearts filled to the brim” with love and compassion, but then they have to go through many difficult and dark things.

“Heartbreak Bear was a representation of people who felt abandoned and neglected, and we wanted to be an all-inclusive community that was also the voice for the people who were bullied or left out in real life,” she stresses.

When asked about the strategy that they use to market this project, Tan says that marketing in the NFT world is “super different” from marketing in the real world. While the conventional marketing strategy might involve the use of social media influencers and SEO, the team soon discovered that this was not the case for their NFT project.

A lot of people accused the project of being a scam, but that was how they realised that marketing an NFT project and other products are “two separate entities.”

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“We wanted to engage people who were at least into NFT and crypto and not just any random influencer, but the pool was so small, maybe five to six people. In this small pool, even the celebrities and marketing agencies didn’t dare to take on any NFT promotion because of legality issues they were afraid of. We also had an influencer who shouted out for us on his own when he found the product interesting … but other influencers started saying that it was irresponsible for influencers to share about NFTs just because they like the project,” Tan elaborates.

“We wanted to go global but every time the Western communities came in, they felt they could not fit in with the time difference and local slangs. So it was hard, and we decided to stop marketing in the real world.”

Luckily, they finally found something that works.

“Now, the strategy is to grow more connections through collaborations and holding AMAs with other projects, where we are able to bring all the NFT communities together and grow together. In the NFT space, if you’re only going to run your project and ignore everyone, it’s going to be a lonely journey. So, why not grow and support other legitimate projects together! From there we caught the attention of several alpha groups that loved what we were doing and gave us their full support, and that was how we managed to gain more traction and sell out during our mint,” Tan continues.

This is why Tan believes that in NFTs, the community is everything.

“In the NFT space, a little FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) can easily cause a whole project to fail. Our community trusted us and supported us even through difficult times, and we had almost zero FUD, [even] when anyone even tried [to do so],” she stresses.

NFTs for tomorrow

When asked about the prospect of NFTs in Southeast Asia (SEA), Tan says that it is “definitely expanding”.

“We know of projects that are even planning and holding NFT exhibitions across SEA countries … it is something that is here to stay and it will thrive in the near future. I cannot 100 per cent say that it will take over FIAT, but from what I see, there is still so much potential and opportunities to bridge NFT and the real world together,” she explains. “I would say, even though the OG stages of NFTs have passed, it’s [still] not too late.”

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As a woman in the NFT space, Tan admits that the space used to be extremely male-dominated, but the good news is that more and more women are joining the space. For women interested in giving NFTs a try, she advises them to never feel as if they are not equal.

In line with the community spirit of NFT, she also put emphasis on the importance of helping and supporting each other.

“Recently when one of our friend’s projects –Soulz– has some issue with their contract, we jumped in and shared our resources and developer to help save the entire contract from failing. Of course … the rest is up to them, but in the NFT space, always be kind and always help others since you already know how hard is it to run an NFT project,” Tan says. “It doesn’t hurt to be nice and we will never paint other projects in a bad light because it has happened to us before –and we never want anyone to feel that way ever. Unless it’s a scam then … we will alert our members.”

Lastly, she would like to remind women to not be intimidated –especially since most people in the community are willing to help.

“If you’re a female trying to start a project, go for it. But you also have to know the commitments behind it. Never give up and know that it’s okay to ask for help.”

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Image Credit: Heartbreak Bear

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