Hi, I’m Niku and I’m here to share stories
Think big and build fast, does not matter if it’s not perfect. You can always iterate later down the road.
This is the first essay that I wrote out of my own volition and, perhaps, the first essay that I wrote for myself. It feels liberating to create something without the expectation that it will be judged and given a numerical value. Unbound by the academic rubrics, raw thoughts and creativity keeps on flowing. With that out of the way, let us start this piece.
A little bit of background about me…
I used to study Language and Literature in university. I can say that I have a literary background, so that means I am good at this right? Unfortunately, no. I have a major dislike for writing — specifically, creative writing. I find it hard to produce ideas out of thin air, same as writing about the ideas that I somehow conjure. Stuck in a course about writing, it was awful. I do not belong in that area. I know that I am good at something, and that is making friends.
My first time dabbling in the world of cryptocurrency, NFTs particularly, is because of Axie Infinity. I learned the basic concepts and continued to study the more intermediate stuff, which I am thankful that I did because it helped me a lot down the line. Although, as much as I would like to talk about crypto, it’s not the main theme of this piece — It’s the community I had when I was starting.
Joining a guild
My first exposure to Discord is when I was playing Minecraft with friends, we created a server with a single text and a single voice channel. We just hop on a VC and start playing together, it was lit. While messing around searching Reddit for Discord guides, I stumbled upon an Axie guild. My initial thoughts when I joined the server was “A group chat with more than a hundred people? This might be chaotic,” and I was wrong. I learned that you can actually create channels in the app to separate the chats into topics. Pretty sick stuff IMO.
As I continued to interact with the community, I formed friendships and connections that would otherwise not be possible had I not joined this server. Eventually, I was promoted as a Moderator in the guild. I had to study how to navigate discord as a Moderator and got the hang of it in a few weeks. It was an amazing feeling.
Moving up the hierarchy in a group made me feel special. I felt influential, I am heard, and my words carry weight to our members. I felt more confident in myself. I am pretty sure that it was the point where I became a leader. As time went by, my itinerary of tasks grew. I started interviewing people, getting in touch with scholars to assess what they need to perform well, and talking to project leaders to secure partnerships for the guild. Quite the educational experience. Sadly, I had to leave the guild.
Stumbling upon Legends of Venari
I found Legends of Venari (LoV) in Twitter by chance. I saw that it had more than just 2k followers and my first thought is “This is pretty cool,” so I joined their Discord and interacted with the community, hoping to win at least one giveaway for that sweet Alpha Pass (I didn’t win on their Twitter giveaways and it sucked ngl, but I did win in Ro11ing-boy’s giveaway some time later so all is good.)
I applied as a moderator in the LoV official server after 2 months of being with them. With all the experience that I had from my other guild, I decided that I was ready for the task. I was accepted! That was one of the most amazing things that happened to me in 2021.
I spent most of my time in the LoV Discord. Answering the queries of members, reporting issues, and just chatting with the community. Things were really hectic especially on the minting days. Messages flooded the server and we had to create automated commands to answer the repeated questions, it was fun and exciting! The feeling of accomplishment after calling it a day is immense.
There was one thing that I noticed the most amidst all those questions, the people who minted multiple passes are fairly new to the concept of ‘scholarships’ or leasing assets to people who want to play the game for a cut on the profits. I wanted to give them guidance and support but there was no way I can individually correspond with them, I don’t have the time to do that. I racked my brain for ideas and that is when the general idea for my own guild started to take shape.
Astra Explorers and beyond…
If I can’t attend to people who want to lend individually, then it makes sense to gather them in a group! I have been building Astra Explorers (AE) since November 2021 to cater to LoV players, scholars, and managers. It is a hub where people who want to lend and those who want to borrow passes can connect. Since most of the managers are either busy and/or are new to the space, we provide support and take care of the management for them. We have a total of 166 scholars and counting.
Gathering the first few lenders for the guild was not easy, I had to pitch this idea to people when the server was still under construction. I almost considered inviting people to the guild as my part time job. Onboarding 20 scholars at the guild launch was a huge success for me and everyone involved. Since then, we have been more active in recruiting people, whether they are scholars or managers.
AE has grown a lot as a community, from less than 100 members back in December, we are now approaching 1000 active members! Our members are some of the top notch players in the game, they are the household names in the Legends of Venari community. We are proud to have them on the team and build with them.
Our goals for AE are always growing and expanding. I will write about the guild more thoroughly on the next pieces in this series.
All of this wouldn’t be possible without all the love and support that we get from you. Thank you for reaching this part.
Much love,
Captain
