Category: Leaders

In 2022, we’re so oversaturated with a marketplace marrying the luxurious with the mundane that sometimes it can be difficult to trace the thread back to where it all began. Eager to unpack the trajectory of the coveted truffle’s meteoric rise to prominence in the mainstream, I spoke to the co-founders of TRUFF hot sauce, Nick Guillen and Nick Ajluni. The entrepreneurial duo was able to shine a light on their journey integrating truffles into the world of hot sauce, which in turn revealed a bit about how we’ve gotten to this truffle-soaked era.

They say all roads lead to Rome. And the adage is certainly representative of the avenue through which the founding Nicks arrived at concocting a high end hot sauce line. During the social media boom of the early 2010s, the Nicks got their hands on the coveted @sauce handle on IG, “which we immediately saw the value of,” Guillen tells me. They initially used the handle as a vessel for curating a vast array of food related content.

“We were posting things we thought would resonate with the pop culture foodie,” Guillen tells me, referring to the emerging landscape of food porn and other culinary social content of the era. The page picked up hype, gaining celebrity followers and reposts from major outlets, but left the duo to consider what more they could do with the handle. 

“Do we want to be an Instagram account with a cool name or create a brand and product that would live on the platform we’re building?” Nick explains the question they were posing in that period. They began researching the sauce market, and realized they were on the precipice of a hot sauce renaissance. “Hot sauce was having a moment,” Ajluni tells me, revealing a few of the ways in which hot sauce was upping its cultural cachet. It was around the time Beyonce was spitting lines about having hot sauce in her bags, and the conversation was heating up—pun intended. “It was just feeling culture and feeling where things were headed, and what was missing from hot sauce and food culture on the internet generally.”

“We didn’t see any top shelf hot sauce brand that really existed,” Ajluni remarks of the era. At the time, most of the hot sauce brands were either huge legacy corporations or small mom and pop operations with extremely limited distribution. “We wanted to be lifestyle first, a product that could sit in a music video,” remarks Ajluni of the nascent days of the brand.

This white space cemented the idea. They were going to create a luxury hot sauce line. But they were uniquely positioned to do it better than anyone else could, with their social media savvy and commitment to a direct to consumer approach. “Nobody had a cracking IG,” Nick chuckles to me. Most of the brands were relying on retailers, and they felt the social media reach from the handle could allow for a fruitful DTC structure. 

“The most important thing was creating a flavor profile that was very elevated,” Nick explains the next step after settling on a hot sauce brand. They looked at a myriad of high end ingredients—saffron, caviar, you name it—before settling on the now-pervasive lavish fungus, the truffle. “We had never seen a truffle hot sauce,” they tell me. Additionally, there was a bit of a longstanding stigma around combining the flavor of truffle with spice. And this taboo was intriguing as it meant they were really opening up an entirely new flavor profile. From there, they spent about two years developing the formula through over 300 recipes before they found the one they thought was the golden ticket. 

“We’re working with raw ingredients that change by season,” Nick tells me, explaining why the process is more nuanced than it would be with a less artisanal product.

TRUFF officially launched in December of 2017 and the two have “been on the go ever since.” A lot of the marketing structure was based on some of the success they had seen from other IG-based DTC brands of the era. “It was all about using that same kind of strategy of cool people who resonated with the product posting it,” they tell me, referencing the strategy of organically building social hype around the product. “We weren’t focused on selling yet. It was all about value.” To this day, TRUFF’s priority is to build brand, not just to sell a product.

Since the launch in 2017, they’ve released three other mainline products: the pasta sauce, spicy mayo and truffle oil. But this isn’t a part of a catch-all approach by any means. A combination of factors—seeing the demand from consumers, emerging retail opportunities and more—led to the integration of more products. “We’d never been a brand to do all things for all people. We’re looking to make less things,” Nick says. Despite now being in 11,000+ stores worldwide, the Nicks still taste the batches. “We approve everything, nothing gets made without our approval.”

The brand’s early commitment to creating cool content is still a throughline in their strategy. They recently released a Youtube series titled “What the TRUFF?!,” and content like that is still integral to the brand’s success and cultural cachet in 2022. The recent web series is hosted by TRUFF’s Tal Cooperman and challenges celebrity guests to create questionably delicious meals using an array of unique and unorthodox ingredients. The episode with deadmau5 is a special standout.

They got on TikTok early and saw success there. “We’ve always tried to bob and weave based on these new technologies that are coming out,” Ajluni tells me, referring to the ways in which their marketing strategies have evolved since 2015. 

Nowadays, it might seem like you see some sort of content integrating truffles every day. “No one was shaving truffles on stuff before we did it,” they smile to me. 

“We wanted to truly create a brand that will be here when our grandkids are around,” Guillen grins to me during the conversation. Five years and change later, they’ve managed to not only change the hot sauce landscape, but food culture in general.

When @enigma.curation first started his account on Instagram in 2019, it was just a private image archive for personal use. Now, 3 years later, the page has racked up nearly 50,000 followers and Enigma himself has done everything from art shows to releasing his own products. The page features daily posts of furniture, fashion, and artwork, each carefully selected by color and form. We had the chance to speak with him about everything from his come up to the state of the burgeoning scene of curators on social media. 

Enigma’s start began far from the world of art and design, having gone to college for a double major in marketing and finance. “I hated it”, he says, “I was going to be a guy at a marketing agency.” So when he was recruited to work at Louis Vuitton from his part time job at Nordstrom, he leapt at the opportunity. From there his journey through the luxury industry continued: a brief stint at Barney’s before its closure, celebrity styling at Balmain, and interior design for Restoration Hardware, to name a few. 

It was during his stint at Balmain where Enigma first conceptualized his page. “Working for singular houses can become boring, because you submerge yourself in the ethos of the house. I needed an outlet, so I thought, ‘Let me start curating.’” 

Curation began as a personal exploration, but Enigma’s experience in luxury and longterm fascination with design quickly led to his friends telling him to take the page more seriously. 

“At first whatever came to my head, I would post. But I decided if I’m going to make this public I need to curate it properly.”

A brief glance at Enigma’s Instagram will let you know that’s exactly what he’s done. His page is one of the most meticulously planned, with each day beginning with a furniture post, succeeded by fashion, then artwork. Each day works steadily through the color wheel, creating a beautifully organized feed that aligns with Instagram’s grid.

Considering how carefully planned the page is, the spontaneity of daily posts is still somewhat surprising. “On my phone alone I have 90,000 photos, and then another 10-15,000 on Pinterest and Are.na. Every day when I wake up, nothing is planned. What went up 10 minutes ago was decided 10 minutes ago.” Enigma posts largely based on what he’s feeling as he scrolls through his colossal archive, but furniture–his first post of the day–always dictates the mood for the rest. 

Instagram and other social media platforms rely heavily on their algorithms to push content to users, leading to an ecosystem where content is frequently reposted and shared between several mood board pages. With that comes an aspect of social hierarchy, where larger pages forego the work of researching themselves, only reposting others with the unspoken understanding that exposure for smaller curators is enough. Enigma doesn’t name any names, but implies that the issue is common.

It is with this in mind that Enigma expressly searches for all of his own content, and never posts just for the algorithm. Key things he looks for on a day-to-day basis are historical context and innovation within a given field. “In order for it to be truly artistic, it needs to have longevity,” he says, “it’s something that’s missing in this commercialist, copy-and-paste environment. You can be overexposed to something and it loses its magic.  I don’t dislike anybody who likes that or that’s all that they know, but the real problem is the algorithms.”

Enigma keeps his identity hidden for a similar reason. He wants all of his curated posts—and his own work—to be viewed in a vacuum, free from judgements about him or the people he knows. In an environment dominated by identity, where peoples’ judgement of a work is predicated on their opinion of the artist, it’s a refreshing take. In a sense though, Enigma’s curatorial abilities say everything they need to about his character.

He’s commonly asked why everything he posts is so expensive and unattainable, but that’s precisely why it needs to be shared for the world to see. Audiences see hundreds of Nikes in their feed every day, desensitized to the reality of conspicuous consumption and working conditions at these massive corporations; yet they question the ethics of a Damien Hirst artwork using real animals. Enigma understands that this might be the viewpoint of some audiences, but “Art is supposed to give you a feeling. I think it’s important that those things are created so people have that reaction, it serves its own role in design. It’s not necessarily good, but if it’s already made we can learn from it.”

It’s easy to see how his own work, like the Duality of Man candle, draws from the vast wealth of information at his disposal and his core values. The limited edition of 100 pieces is ethically produced from eco-friendly soy wax and hand poured in Los Angeles and, like his curation, explores the various facets of the human condition and the means through which they are expressed. This thread continues through artworks like the “Cycles” series, which interprets one’s perception of the world over time as a sequence of circles on rich, textured backgrounds that revolve around the color wheel just like his posts.

Enigma’s recent art show in LA displayed much of his painted work, all of which can be viewed online here. If what he has already shown is any indicator of his path moving forward, expect big things to come from him in every discipline from fine art, fashion, product and beyond.

Since the launch of its first apparel capsule in 2018, Grand Collection has quickly found its footing in the NYC skate scene as a brand for the culture. Helmed by one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, Ben Oleynik, Grand is constantly in a process of giving back to the community. Oleynik and Grand have shown a spotlight on iconic NYC establishments, raised money for Ukraine and released numerous collections over the years that represent the enigmatic world of NYC skateboarding.

In the brand’s latest effort to highlight NYC institutions, Grand collaborated with Iconic Magazines, a deli/magazine retailer in the lower east side that boasts one of the few remaining extensive catalogues of print journalism. We at ONE37pm caught up with the founder of Iconic, Hemal Sheth, earlier this week to hear about his process of maintaining such a hub of creative culture in 2022.

The collaboration event, which took place Thursday evening, was truly one for the books. With tunes provided by Jéfé reverberating throughout the lower Manhattan mainstay, a swath of skateboarders, artists and fans of Grand spilled out onto Mulberry Street throughout the evening.

The launch party marked the release of Grand’s zine with Iconic, entitled A Paper Trail—a love letter to NYC’s skate culture. The zine released in tandem with a series of three tee shirts cementing the collab; the zines and shirts are available to purchase at the Iconic Mulberry location and Dover Street Market.

“I met the owner of Iconic, Hemal, and we connected instantly over our love of print. I’ve been going to his shops forever, it’s such a special and unique experience. So we wanted to do something together to support and really celebrate magazines and his shop,” Ben explains how the collab came to fruition. “Then I spoke with Scott from Dover and we partnered to launch the collection in their London location and E-SHOP. Dover already supports print with a book and magazine section in their stores, so it was a perfect fit.”

From artists like A$AP Ferg to skaters like Buggy Talls, the community showed up in a major way to support the release. It was an electric event; browse through the photos below for a slice of the experience.

Follow along with Grand and Iconic on Instagram to stay up to date.

“Imagine replacing Amazon and Ali Baba and all of those intermediaries with one network—like the S.W.I.F.T. network— for commerce,” Justin Banon, co-founder of Boson Protocol, tells me early in our conversation about about the platform—which is essentially demonstrating the next evolution of NFT smart contract technology. Rather than only using the tech to record the exchange of digital assets, Banon and Boson are revealing how the tech can be tied to physical assets as well; theoretically (and in practice), a contract can be programmed in an almost limitless way, thus the concept of using the contracts to document ownership of something both physical and digital at once seems like a natural next step.

I spoke to Justin hot off Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland, a series of shows and event that could not have come to fruition if it wasn’t for the contributions of Boson. Boson’s tech was key in setting up stores within their Boson Portal, which allowed users to buy assets that came with a digital wearable and the potential of a physical item. For example, the Tommy Hilfiger store allowed users to buy a piece of Tommy garb that came in both formats.

Justin founded Boson back in 2019, during a crypto winter that Banon describes as plagued by skepticism. “A lot of people were like, this thing isn’t gonna happen,” he tells me. Fast forward to 2022 when his tech is being used to onboard names like Tommy Hilfiger into the space: “I feel like I’m hallucinating that suddenly everyone wants to build in web3.” Since 2019, the NFT marketplace has certainly seen some peaks and valleys. “There’s good and there’s bad, so when it’s good, it’s vindicating and it’s fun,” he describes the current moment.

The reason why the technology is so exciting is because of how malleable and programmable the contracts can become. For example, you could—down the line—limit sales of a certain physical item to only those who possess a certain NFT in their wallet. The inverse is also possible. “All this token gating and programmability is native to the protocol,” Justin explains. Right now, they are using V1 of the Boson Protocol, but V2 is expected to launch some time this summer.

“All of this sort of programmability that we find with NFTs is coming to commerce,” Justin elaborates. Right now, in the NFT landscape, we’re accustomed to token-gated drops. But that same notion could be extrapolated to commerce writ large as a transition towards smart contracts unfolds. Justin envisions a future in which all luxury retail—and retail generally, for that matter—can incorporate a dual-asset system. “You’re going to feel short changed when you buy a $5000 handbag without the NFT,” he says, going on to imagine a future in which our purchases toe the line between physical and digital, existing as wearables in the metaverse (or simply as digital assets) and a physical item.

The dawning of the phygital asset is upon us. 

He poses a hypothetical: “Imagine you go to a designer store, and there’s a physical item there that you can’t buy. You have to do something in the metaverse, then you activate a bundle NFT that unlocks a digital wearable, experiences and the physical item.” And with an explosive interest in the space coming from the traditional fashion world in recent months, this hypothetical seems not too distant.

“Big brands want to get into this because they know it’s the future,” Justin explains, adding: “It’s become a hygiene factor. Brands have to do it.” They have a few projects in the works with some brands—which can’t be disclosed now—but the success of Metaverse Fashion Week is a pseudo-guinea pig of the future world of fashion and commerce blurring the lines between real and digital. 

Using the technology to document ownership of PFP jpegs has made up the majority of the conversation around NFTs throughout 2021 and 2022. But Boson Protocol—and numerous other innovations—are demonstrating the limitless potential of the contracts.

Sotheby’s, the world-renowned luxury auction house, has recently opened a new exhibition free to the public. Titled “Modern Collectibles”, the exhibition showcases some of the most sought after design works and memorabilia of the modern zeitgeist. As such, key pieces include classic basketball shoes dating all the way back to the famous Converse Weapons, a Supreme bicycle previously owned by Eric Clapton, a t-shirt worn by Will Smith in the film “Men in Black”, and much, much more.

If that list isn’t enough to entice you to go right away, we’ve compiled a few of our favorites from our visit to the exhibition to compel you further. After all, it’s free!

If you are a fan of basketball or rap with deep pockets, know that everything in the “Modern Collectibles” exhibit is available for auction, with prices listed alongside each object. Without giving away too much more, we urge you to check the exhibition as soon as possible, as it closes Tuesday, April 5. Find it at Sotheby’s location on 1334 York Ave.

Rarely do I have a conversation that makes as lasting of an impression as my chat with Shavo Odadjian, legendary bass player to System of a Down and multi-hyphenate entrepreneur behind cannabis lifestyle brand 22Red. Every utterance from Shavo courses with humility and a knowledge that he is continuing to evolve every day. The things he learned as a 21 year old in the streets of LA eagerly promoting System of a Down are as important now as they were then. I had the opportunity to catch up with the man himself to hear a bit about his genesis and the process of developing a weed brand as a longtime lover of cannabis.

Initially conceptualized as a lifestyle brand, Shavo came up with the concept for 22Red in 2017. He had always identified as a cannabis advocate, but didn’t want to hop into the game just for the sake of hopping. “I didn’t want to be a celebrity brand and just put my name on shit. I’m not that guy. I’m hands on,” he tells me, before explaining the meaning behind the brand’s cryptic name.

There’s truly no shortage of reasonings behind why Shavo holds the number 2 close to his heart. First off, he was born on April 22nd, which is two plus two (4) and then 22. He was 44 years old when he thought of the concept for the brand. His two sons are two years and twenty two days apart. The brand officially launched 11/11/18. Eleven plus eleven equals? The list goes on.

The inclusion of “Red” is based on his synesthesia and ability to see all numbers tied to a color. “Threes are yellow, ones are white, and twos are red,” he tells me, dropping it as if it’s a given.

As a lifelong cannabis enthusiast, Shavo wanted to get into cannabis, but wanted to make sure he did it right. He met some of the team behind Surreal Yields, which is now his official growing partner. Upon first meeting them, “I was like, ‘Wow bro.’ I could represent this,” he tells me, adding; “I started smoking it… and kept on smoking it.” Throughout our conversation, he emphasizes that he would never shill a product that he would not personally endorse and use. “I swear by it, or I wouldn’t want it in my store,” he smiles to me. 

Initially a little hesitant to put his name on the brand for fear of being dismissed as a celeb brand, the selection and curation process was paramount. His partnership with Surreal Yields alleviated the fear. “I’d rather you love the brand because of the product and what we stand for. Let the product speak for itself,” he goes on to extrapolate to more general advice:

Through it all, Shavo still views 22Red as a lifestyle brand and creative hub above all. “I love art, I love creative shit. I think there aren’t enough brands honoring the creatives,” he tells me. They run a program called ”Framed by 22Red” that spotlights creatives just for the love of art. “It’s people you might know, people you’ve never heard of,” he tells me, adding that he loves the program because “you might inspire another artist to move the needle.”

I was curious to hear how Shavo’s days beginning System of a Down on the streets of LA influenced his process of promoting and growing 22Red. “The hustle is really what I appreciate, because it’s in me too,” he tells me, before diving into the guerrilla marketing utilized by the band in their nascent days and how it’s applying to 22Red in the current moment.

“When System started, I was managing. I didn’t know that it was branding and marketing, I just knew how to represent a brand,” he tells me, referring to the time when he went around throwing stickers up in West Hollywood. “Even before we had a tape, I was already thinking about the vision and the flyers,” he chuckles to me. He tells me the story of creating this iconic image, which would go on to be a lot of folks in LA’s first introduction to the now world famous System of a Down. 

He would throw the flyers up around town, and when people asked him about the band name, he would respond: “Don’t worry about it. Just get used to this name.” This was barebones marketing before the concept really existed. “I just wanted the name to get engraved in people’s heads in Hollywood.”

“I learned how to brand something. I learned how to market what I branded,” he reflects on these early days. “When I decided to start a brand, I used that same mentality,” he explains, and especially with a lot of the regulations around marketing weed, these semi-unorthodox practices have been a perfect fit. 

For both System of a Down and 22Red, there are essentially two benchmarks a “product” needs to hit. “It has to be two things, something I relate with and something I love. Then I can sell it to anyone,” he explains. “I believe in cannabis, I believe in the power of the medicine that it is,” he tells me. 

And he has a special place in his heart for the 22Red products and some of the strains he has curated for the brand—from finding the perfect Sativa to uncovering other cross strains that avoid couch lock. Also a little pro tip I learned from Shavo: to really indulge in the flavors of a new strain, take a dry hit of the J before you light it up. I’ve been doing it every smoke since we spoke and it’s a life changer.

Shavo is still making music, he’s still hustling and he’s still—truly—one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He exudes kindness and candor in every moment of our interaction. He’s working on a collaboration with Brooklyn Projects as an homage to his roots skating in LA.