#006 : SOUND SAMPLES, BLOCKCHAIN DREAMS AND THE ART OF FAILING FORWARD

Failure. It is a daunting word. Heavy. It stirs something deep inside us, a tightening in the chest, a quiet panic in the back of the mind. We hear it and instinctively want to protect ourselves. In the business world, we try to soften it with slogans like “fail fast” or “fail forward,” but the real fear is rarely in the act of failing itself. It is in what happens after. What if the thing you have poured yourself into collapses? What if you cannot meet expectations, whether they are your own, your team’s, or your partner’s? What if you fall short in full view of everyone? Most of that fear is primal. It is self-preservation. But some people, founders in particular, learn how to quiet that instinct just enough to take a leap anyway.

I have come to realize I am an instinctive person. I act quickly. Sometimes too quickly. While that is not always a great trait, when I manage it well it becomes the reason I try things others hesitate on. The truth is, I can only really learn by doing. And not just tinkering in private. I need the thing to be real, out in the world, or else my motivation fades. That means whatever I build is open to every kind of opinion: the praise, the criticism, and the worst response of all, indifference. Because I move on instinct, I have had plenty of moments where I have put something out there only to later think, “What was I doing?” Sometimes, looking back, the idea really did not make sense. But that is the thing — did I fail, or did the idea fail?

A few years ago, I fell headfirst into the NFT and crypto world on X. It was a wild scene, full of artists experimenting, communities forming overnight, and ideas turning into tokens that could sell in seconds. As a lifelong musician, I could not help but think about what this meant for music. Could on-chain assets give musicians new ways to connect with fans? Could there be a market for music NFTs? I had no answers, but my instinct said, “Why not?” So I dove in and decided to create "Music NFTs".

Through that process, I discovered sampling. I had never worked with samples before, though I knew what the concept meant. I was a guitarist, and that was the only instrument I played. While working on the project, I found myself watching dozens of YouTube videos, learning how to cut, loop, and layer sounds. The first time I combined a sample with my own guitar playing, something clicked. Suddenly I was mixing heavy guitars with flutes, synths with accordions, whatever wild combination came to mind. It was pure discovery. Hours turned into days, days into weeks. I was in a flow state, chasing the next sound, the next blend. It was intoxicating.

I ended up creating sixteen tracks in total. Some were rough. Some were polished. And three, I thought, had more potential than just sitting on-chain. One of them eventually became a single I released separately. The project was called Mixtape. I even designed the artwork myself. I downloaded Procreate on my iPad, watched a handful of tutorials, and started layering colors and shapes to recreate the mixtape covers I used to make as a kid, the ones I would decorate by hand and trade with friends and cousins.

After a couple of months, I minted the collection on Ethereum. I posted it on X, promoted it a little, and within days I knew. This. Does. Not. Make. Any. Sense. As collectibles, they were cool. But the NFT hype was fading. Delivering any meaningful value through the token was proving impossible. On-chain playback was clunky. In truth, the people in that space were not looking for musicians. They were chasing a different kind of value.

In the days after deciding to let it go, I felt a mix of disappointment and embarrassment. I wondered why I had chosen the on-chain route at all. But underneath that was something else — a sense of accomplishment. Because at the end of it, I had made music. My music. Start to finish, I had done all of it myself.

Months later, I began to see it differently. That so-called failure had taught me a huge amount. I had made sixteen original tracks, unheard by most, but I had gone from dabbling in music production to operating Logic Pro like a pro. I had learned the basics of blockchain, digital art, and smart contracts. I understood the mechanics of on-chain art in a way that most people never will. That project did not give me an audience or a profit. It gave me skills, perspective, and a deeper toolkit for everything I have built since.

So let’s reframe failure. In a founder’s world, it is tuition for my own experiments. Every project that does not land is still paying for the skills, insights, and instincts that will shape the next one. Mixtape never became what I hoped, but it became a lab where I learned tools and processes I still use today. That is not failure. That is fuel. And for a rebel builder, fuel is everything.