Millionaire by Morning Interview: Founder and Creator B Dos
Brandon Doswell, known as B Dos, was the guest on our podcast and we got an interesting chat with him. He shared his journey with listeners and shared valuable information about his hustles or ventures which include a cartoon series, clothing lines, animation companies, NFTs, and much more.
Rashad Thirlkill
Okay. Recording progress.
So, the proper way to say your name is B Dos?
B DOS
B Dos. My last name is Brandon Doswell, just short for Doswells. B Dos.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
For my listeners out there, this is B Dos. Brandon has a Bachelor’s degree in Business with a background in Consumer Technology. Creator of the Cartoon Series Hustlman – The Superhero, founder of Hustl Collective, the Master brand HTSH, and Hustle of Pearl the clothing line. The Fire Watch and HustlComics Animation Company.
So, if you can explain a little bit about Hustle, I assume it’s the umbrella. So, if you could explain some of the things that you have going on up under the umbrella.
B DOS
All right, cool. So first of all, I appreciate you having me on. Thanks a lot, Millionaire On Morning podcast. I think that just the concept is dope in general. So, I will say thank you.
As far as the company is concerned, Hustle is something that the company became Hustle from a collective of Hustles over time. And when I’m doing something, I like to kind of like stand back and look at it and look at it for a little bit more of what it could be and not just what it is when I’m looking at it at that moment.
So, if I’m going to make and sell t-shirts, I’m not just going to sell T shirts, I’m going to do a clothing line. You see what I’m saying? And that was the mentality of everything that I was doing. Kind of like I would say forever even. I started out like I have a sports background. Like, I played ball, but I tore my knee, I tore my hamstring, I broke my collarbone before. I didn’t do it. You know what I mean? I didn’t have so many different injuries that I would have to kind of dig into my inner self and say, well, what else do you get at?
Because I would hear people that were ordering me are always telling me, make sure you got something to fall back on. Everybody will make you the League. And I’m like, I’m not. So after a while, you start to I remember telling somebody that my major was going to be football when I went to school, and that was like the dumbest thing that I ever said. But over time at school, selling t-shirts on campus and stuff like that.
When I got out of school, I did an online company, online clothing company called Swagger World Online, which is a place where you’re supposed to log in and then you’re just in a different world, per se, and then you can buy clothes, but then see different updates on things in the culture and things of that nature. But we ended up turning that into a store.
I was good at it but I did have some help. We turned that into a store in my neighborhood called Swagger Roll. And we had, like, high-end denim. We had teas and hoodies and stuff like that, too. But we had, like, a lot of custom clothing. But then on top of that, we did rap battles in there. We did fantasy shows, photoshoots, and played chess in there. We do all kinds of stuff at the spot that became like Swagger World like a different place.
It started there, really. But then over time, my building was kind of falling apart, and I’m not kind of falling apart a whole in the wintertime. And they said they want to fix it until spring. So I’m like, now I got to figure out what I want to do. And I reached out to some of my clothing manufacturers, and they pointed me into the direction of electronic manufacturers. But that’s how I got into even dealing with technology in general.
That background was created after I didn’t go to school or anything technical or anything like that. I went to school for business. We used to have to just pitch different business courses. I mean, business ideas and actual companies and class things like that. So that’s what I went to school before. It just happened. I feel like I look at something, I look for a boy and say, well, this is missing this, or I can do this. Something like that.
So, being from Pittsburgh, just to be that one time, being from Pittsburgh, this is a terrible town between terrible times.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay. But black and yellow.
B DOS
Yes, sir. So, back when Hines Ward was still playing, and I was watching him work out, his headphones had a wire leading down to his phone, and pre-game, he’s working out, and it’s just bouncing on his waist. And I was thinking, this is before wireless and all that. So I’m thinking, what if they can have something wireless?
No, matter of fact, he didn’t have the wire. It was wireless. But my idea was to just put the music on the headphones so it’s not bouncing your waist or anything like that when you’re working out, running, doing anything, any kind of physical activity. So that’s what that idea came from.
So, I reached out in China, and we did that, and we sold and we made a couple of different models. I think we made a supreme Mysounds Wireless 412, Mysounds Wireless flavors. We had, like, three different color flavors. So that was, like the digital consumer technology side.
And then from there, when you put, like, a firewash next to that, that’s a smoking lighter. So you slide the face down and you can tap your paper, whatever you got in there to the thing that lights it on, the watch. It’s a digital watch. So we put some out. We sold some locally, but then we put them in some stores, but I shelf it and waited to put them back out for real because we got three great ideas for it, so we won’t rush it.
When we started to bring in a cartoon, which that brings me to now. So now when I’m doing the cartoon, I’m using my headphones from the past that I did, and we got all the drip that goes with the Clover line. These things that I did in the past kind of in fragments equal up to the overall hustle. So that’s when I say, all right, Hustle Collective.
I’m going these collective hustles that I created, I’m going to put this under one umbrella, and then from there, it just kind of focus on each one and then make a flagship product or service to lead. And then the other ones that come behind it kind of will form up and grow as this other one leads to charge.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay, so you started at a time where it was physical products, as in the t-shirts, as in flagship stores, retail store fronts.
B DOS
Yes. With Red Monkey and True Religion, and I used to be out back then. Black Label Robin’s Jeans just came out. A lot of different jeans that were like a couple hundred dollars. Everybody was on the Red Monkeys back then. If these two jeans, those were big, I remember, yes.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay, so you have now transitioned to the digital aspect. The clothing line that you’re doing now, is it 100% online or are you going back into retail or how would that play out?
B DOS
So the clothes online primarily, it was supposed to be, we just like to do things differently. It was supposed to be us putting the cartoon characters on the clothing. This is just like the poster fly that we had in the marquee, but just in general, like the different action scenes when you break down the different characters, like, we might have somebody shoot back this way or whatever the scene is.
We wanted to put cool designs on clothes, but then the creator in us, whatever that fire is that says there’s more to what you’re doing right now. You know what I mean? My partner Move, he’s our creative director. When we start talking, we just go back and forth, back and forth, but then it grows into a full line. So to answer your question, yeah, the clothing will be in other stores, but we won’t open a clothing store.
The next spot that I open up is going to be like, I don’t want to say too much about it, but basically like a compound, like a multimedia type of space that has, like, that encompasses all the things that we’re doing. So there’ll be photography and a fashion section over there. I mean, it just makes sense that after you make them right here, then you still got to take a picture of the clothes to put them out here.
And then now we might as well bring in people from the hood who are nice with the camera. Now, these people can shoot and we make and then everything kind of stays in that circle.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Right. It all goes hand in hand. Anyway.
B DOS
We shouldn’t want to just be closer at this point. People order stuff online like crazy. But if you got a spot where you work at or office or something like that, or something that serves the people and as a brand with it, then you might as well have a retail section over there where people can grab some.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Right? Why not? Like restaurants?
B DOS
Exactly.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Yeah. I get your hat or t-shirt from Hooters.
So, I see that you have a teams. Teams are so important to me, man. So, I like to carve out a little time for you to shout out your team, your creators, if you want to mention them, because I know I’ll be kind of diving into the people that you work with.
B DOS
Got you. Okay. So, I got a few teams as far as what we can call the flagship or co-flagship being an NFT project, that team. Because that’s like probably the most important right now. And me as, like, the creator and the designer of it, I had the idea to create these NFTs that have physical utility and utility on the back end for the users that buy NFT. We’ll get into utility on that stuff in a second.
The Malika is number one. He’s a co-star in the cartoon, but he’s also an administrator in the NFT or for the NFT space.
Now he comes from a line of endeavors and creations on his own. Like all the other two gentlemen, that’s a part of this thing. They are their own people on their own. It’s not like this is my company. And then I brought some people in this situation where that applies.
But for this, you need people that used to being able to galvanize people or reach out to a certain world, and that’s what we can do. He worked on multiple clothing brands. He worked on multiple artists albums and his own artists themselves.
So I know for what we need him for as far as being an administrator. Because when you’re creating NFC, you have to set up a discord and run and build a community, mixed in with social media. The discord is like a messaging chat back and forth where you kind of let everybody see what you get. It’s just a different messaging service, but that’s usually where people have their NFC conversations, announcements, and things like that.
Then you got Billy. He’s an eclectic fellow. Usually when people are like, creators, designers, and animators or something like that. They have a different view on life. And that’s kind of why I felt like I needed him; we worked in the past. He’s worked on magazines and he’s done all kinds of stuff as well. And I think there should be a point where we get back, we do another one. And I got all three of us in the thing so they can kind of like pop their own talk.
But yeah, he’s been in the space. He’s the person that if he did it, you know, it’s going to have quality, you know, it’s going to be topnotch, you know what I’m saying? And me and him have had discourse in the past because we kind of think the same. So if something isn’t good or he’ll tell you like, that’s not good, but he’ll say it like that. And you’re like, well, you ain’t got to say it like that. So he might rub you the wrong way, but he knows what he’s talking about.
As a founder, you got to be able to see talent, move certain things out the way and get things done and be able to work with each other, because just because he can be direct and say things like that, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t do the best work. So let’s get the job done, you know what I mean? I’m excited to jump in with them, too.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay. All right. To build on that, let’s start from the beginning. Can you give and this is basically for my listeners and a lot of people out there who are not caught up. Can you tell us a little bit about NFTs and what they are benefits of right now?
B DOS
Before I say this, don’t let whoever is hearing this, don’t let this new world scare you because number one is here. So we don’t got no choice. And that’s what I told myself, you know what I mean?
Again, I didn’t go to school. I was in high school building computers. I played football in high school. I’m from the hood, I go to College to play ball, and I go to school for business. So, don’t think that it’s like, well, you have this background or not. I just go, that’s all.
NFT stands for non-fungible tokens. A non-fungible token is something that can’t be swapped for anything identical.
So if I were to give you a dollar, you give me a different dollar back, but it’s still the same value. But if I were to give you an NFT, you can’t give me a different NFT. Even if it’s the same picture, it has a different digital footprint. So it’s a one of one itself.
Being a one of one that starts, that kind of begins the value of something when you can’t duplicate it. So then to make it simpler, because we produced different products in the past. So, in my phone, I have like a list of barcodes, but I don’t know what those bar codes are. I got to click on each one. I got to look at the last four numbers and say, what was that?
Now, what if I put a picture on each one of those bar codes? Then I’ll know exactly which ones are which. So that’s all NFT is. It’s numbers and letters together and it looks like a link. That’s really what it is.
Now, artists say, you know what, let’s put a picture over top of this and make it valuable because it’s rare. There’s only one of these, even if it’s the same picture. This one is 104586 and this one is 104587. You see what I’m saying? So now we both own a part of a collection of this art. The mine is mine and yours is yours. So that’s kind of the basis of what an NFT is.
It’s not necessarily about our artists made it about art and turned up. And I respect it as an artist myself. But at the same time, in the future, I can see since, like I said, it’s just a digital code. I can see having this digital code on your phone. You go in your wallet, open it up, you get to the door and scan it to your door, and then it’s going to unlock your door. You could use that for anything. Don’t necessarily think of just anything.
For another example, Nas, he drops an NFT. He drops a music NFT. And so this is a different aspect. What I was talking about was a picture, and they call those PFP profile pictures, and you see a lot of those with the monkeys or the different little profile pictures.
Nas dropped a music NFT, which is done what they call fractionals and think of the word itself. Fractional breaks down. So he drops rare, I mean, he puts out rare from King’s Disease, rare King’s Disease II, and Ultra Black from King’s Disease one.
So he puts those two up and offered everybody or a certain amount of people because he can say there’s 1000 of them available. He can make that choice.
People popularly make 10,000 collection NFTs. I’m not doing that. I’m starting a niche community, a small type of people that are about the brand. It might as want to be just like a 2000 or something, we’ll get to that.
As far as Nas is concerned, when they put this music out, it’s only two songs, so it has to be broken down. You bought a piece. I bought a piece. Everybody bought a piece. But this is the money that can be made now in this era with the same music that you just dropped.
He could have said, I think he capped it at like 1000 or maybe a couple of thousand. It wasn’t that much. He could say, I’m dropping this for. I’m dropping 100,000 views and my lowest package is going to be his lowest package was $99. So that means that from now 100 and up people paid for a fraction of owning this song.
So what do you get with that? I don’t know particularly what they offer with that, besides owning, having the rights, and getting kicked back whenever it makes money, whenever realties come in, that’s obvious. Get the Realtors get a piece of that. Then you can say I own a piece of Nas catalog.
You know what I mean? And whatever else they may offer, you may get you all Nas’s concerts, free scanning boot as an NFT. You may be able to get any special access. You can scan this NFT and get access to it. So that’s some of the things that we’re going to do as well.
To Lil Nas, he made a million. He sold a million in NFTs for a dollar. And he said it’s dropping on his day and it was him and Cassidy. We had a little back and forth battle about his lyrics or something like that.
Tory Lanez put out a response and dropped it as an NFT and it sold out in 59 seconds. If they go over there, a million people only paid a dollar. And guess what? It’s not like that’s going to record nowhere but to his wallet. You see what I’m saying? Like, that’s a whole different data.
Tory Lanez jumping around the room like, is it official? It’s official. Whoever was watching told him, yeah, it’s official. So instead of selling my album for $10, he sold a whole album. It wasn’t a song. I’m pretty sure it was a whole album he dropped for a dollar. But since it’s a million, I’m making a million dollars right now.
Yeah, it’s like that.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
It’s an amazing time, man.
B DOS
I’ve been saying this and it’s so new that you’re not like it seems like right now, if somebody doesn’t know about it, they’re on the other side of the fence or the glass and are watching all this stuff going on.
I was just like that. And the people that are like where’s now in the space might have paid six figures for NFT or made a million or a couple of million off NFT, they only been in this since like August, you know what I’m saying?
If you’ve been in it for five years, you’re the super-duper OG. Like Crypto punks is what they’re called. But the little pictures that looks like old Nintendo eight-bit games.
Crypto punks, they were like one of the first ones. They dropped the NFT in 2017. And listen, you can tell if you think about it, you can tell this was going to go this life was going to go this way because gamers, they would buy things when they’re playing the game. I’m not a big gamer, but they would have bad things when they’re playing the game and they would feel accomplished when they bought it.
They’re like, man, I got this new. My boy will show off his cars. Look, I got this right here, and it really is like I can see people. When you think about the Metaverse, I can see people creating these spaces. And now since there’s digital currency, there’s cryptocurrency, I want to go too far, go too fast. But being at that exist now, you can charge to go into this club that’s on the iOS.
Yeah, you see what I’m saying? So now all of that right now is free people just running around in there and going in the studio. I was with my boy yesterday in the studio. It was crazy. I wasn’t with my boy. He’s in Florida. But on there, me and him together was moving around for like an hour or two. And then we’re talking to the people who built the studio. He’s telling us his thoughts on what he wants to do. It’s crazy.
It reminds me. Of course not reminds me. But it’s similar to the cannabis boom. The gold rush, those type of times. It’s that early and it’s that big. But the difference is those were tangible things. This is digital.
So when you were trying to jump, run out there, run to California or Denver, wherever and start your cannabis business, you still need a certain bag to be able to set all this up, hire this stuff, get this passed and all these laws, you know what I mean?
Same thing with the gold rush, but even with the.com boom. But this is not like that. You can affordably build something that can net you billions of dollars or maybe not millions of dollars. It might not be that. Don’t be enough for that, but it can put you in another space. It can definitely give you the light.
Like this podcast to be NFT at some point to where it just has that digital footprint connected to it. So whenever you decide to make it an NFT and everybody that’s watching now, they’ll be in a discord, watching it and they can watch it for free.
All that’s for free. But you got your money from us when we bought the NFT, and that made me a part of your crew instead of just charging a membership because somebody might not know me or know who I’m interviewing. So they might not want to pay to get in the spot, you know what I mean?
But if I can be a part of this community and it ain’t necessarily about me knowing you or knowing branding as much, look all these people in here as networking. And he got these guests who talk about this and this and that. NFT represents that, and that’s something that I can hold and I can make my avatar or whatever. So that’s kind of how I see it.
Some people strictly see it as art, but I see it as like, all too useful.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
I have not seen it in that light. The Tory Lanez story sounds like the epitome of Millionaire by Morning. That’s the epitome of it. And the thing about it is the whole concept of my brand is the fact that you can put something together and you can sell it.
It’s just like an NBA player. You fall in love with basketball when you’re young. You work every day. Hopefully, you can grow to be past six foot something, but you still got to put that work in. You still got to face competition, but you may just happen to wake up one morning and get a phone call from an NBA team.
They say, we want you to come play for us, and this is how much we’ll pay. So not only is that a scenario, but like you say, if you can understand the whole NFT aspect and work it in your way, I think at this moment in time, what we’re going through in this day and age, the sky really is the limit. We’ve heard that a lot. But at this moment, I believe that’s the case, man,
B DOS
For people who still believe something, because that’s probably the main question when it
comes to the new thriving industries. What is this Bitcoin thing I’m talking about? What is this NFT thing?
I missed the early Bitcoin training and some of those things. Like some of my people, they got in early and they’re enjoying it. And whatever facility comes with it, that’s part of the game for them because they’re not just in it for the money. It’s part of the whole chase.
But in this situation, think about this. There was a point when phones came out, and when phones came out, it was just about communication. Then it turned into a point where you can carry a phone. And I remember when people first got cell phones and it had, like a little block joint.
Do you know what I mean? That to being able to be on your phone and talk as a TV. I’m saying it’s going to happen when we have phones. We were using touch screens for a long time before we really started downloading apps, but apps were already existing.
You know what I mean? People were using apps. Think about how long it took people to even rather be. Man, some of the phones came with early podcasts or early software that you can just set up and cast to different people and things like that. So it’s going to be something that everybody uses. It’s not going to be something that the techies just use.
It’s going to be something that everybody uses. No different than seeing, like how I’m looking at a bar code on something right now, and they know when it comes to the front scan, it boom. Like, no different than like QR code.
We just didn’t know what those were not too long ago, you know what I mean? We just didn’t know what those were. Then we start using them. Boom, boom, boom. Now we as in my company in particular, we use them and we work them in our design.
If you take a picture of the shirt now, it’s going to take you to my website. See what I’m saying? So now we’re creating, like, smart apparel and rest of the piece, Nipsey, because when I see Nipsey do an interview, he was talking about making smart clothes and having a smart store. When you’re in there and you can snap that and it’ll take you to wherever you need more information about it, everything in the store, you’ll talk about doing something similar or something like that.
When I saw that, I was like, oh, my goodness, that is exactly. I’m glad somebody is not like, oh, he’s doing it. Rather, I’m like, thank you. I’m glad somebody sees, I’m glad somebody doesn’t see a boundary. It doesn’t matter if this is that and this is that over here. We want to marry these two things.
Now we’re going to turn art and technology and splash and drip into one entity being right here. So I can see that piece of clothing, I can scan that piece of clothing, and I can get whatever digital, whatever information that comes up digitally.
I haven’t even heard any other artists that come out with lines or brands or say anything like that or look to do maybe not that, but just innovative things they might just make, like concert apparel or something like that, or like merch, as they call it, but not necessarily take another step just to see where it could go. Just to be. He was definitely forward-thinking and even that $100 mixtape, you know what I mean? Stuff like that.
Today is March 1, speaking of which, Rest in Peace my boy Wolf 1999. Every year we’ll be at a homestead in Pittsburgh. It’s a national holiday. So today somebody might be in another state or wherever, but they’re going. As a matter of fact, I’ll go for my drink, too, but, yeah, so definitely somebody I looked up to back in the day, and we just wanted to tell old stories about.
I used to watch him and my brother put their rap groups together and things like that. Just stuff like that. It’s just like priceless. You can’t get it back. Rest in Peace. Appreciate it.
But all my answers will be like that, though. So I’ll be like, hold on, let me chill. Let me go. My answer.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
No, you’re good, man. This is your platform. I mean, it’s my platform, but this is you talking to my people. So especially about the NFT. You’re putting it in a way that I’ve never even really heard. And I know that’s some fire information right there
When you’re saying forward-thinking, and like, Nipsey Hussle knew that, I don’t know if he read a marketing book or whatever is the reason for that $100 mixtape. So, that was genius in my eyes. But I heard that’s where it came from.
B DOS
I thought that he got it from, a matter of fact, me and my boy were just talking about that. My man said that he had bought JayZ. So JayZ said your single was $99. Mine is $4. So he said, my man said that he bought JayZ’s single and didn’t know who JayZ was because it cost more than all the rest of them.
So, I do believe that Nipsey read the book and then set that up. But to piggyback off of that, JayZ bought a hundred of those hundred dollars. He was like, I had the most expensive joint back then. So I see the young fella let me go to support, you know what I mean?
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Yeah, that was dope, man. But being that he’s the only one that stands out as far as combining technology and art, so he had to get that from somewhere, right? And what I mean is, he didn’t get it out of the rap community. He had to either be in touch with or in tune with someone who knew about these types of things.
So, with you being from Pittsburgh, where do you get your information from as far as your forward-thinking is concerned?
B DOS
Right. That’s a good question, because I asked myself where this is all derived from, and it’s a collective in itself. Part of it is knowing that the Earth is my turn, first of all. You know what I mean?
I’m from here, but everywhere I go, I meet. So I’m not one of these people or one of those people that will move somewhere else. And then they call me Pittsburgh or I’m from Pittsburgh.
That goes the same when you’re in certain rooms and everything. But then I guess even when I think of that, that had to come from somewhere, too. So I would say my family, my family, we’re all similar, but in our own industries or in our own way, we don’t see things as they are ever. Whatever it is, we kind of take it to another level.
My sister, she has a plant company that she blew up out of the mud and didn’t even have to spend that much money to do it but just to work. She’s down in DC with her partner. But they didn’t just sell plants. They built a brand and like a community and a feeling that comes along with their brand grounded and moving back plans, they make you feel like you’re taking home your child.
And my brother, one of my brothers, my next oldest brother, who I was referring to, he’s a developer and he’s in Silicon Valley, but he’s from here and he went out there to go out there and get after it. He’s had some success, but he’s self-taught. He taught us how to play the piano, taught himself how to computer code. He’s a wonderful type of people.
So all of us, when we go after some recipes for my older brother Damien, he was another one of those people, too. I went with him first to New York. I went to New York a bunch of times to buy clothes and things like that for my own store. But the first time I went and I was just telling the son who is my nephew, it was with him and riding up there with him and hearing him.
He’s the type of person I would give you a bunch of game all the time. So when I’m hearing the game, he’s giving me the game in the car on the road up there. When you get out here, look, this how you got to beat this, how you got to move and all of that. So I’m young taking all of that.
My dad was like that too. He definitely is a business chaser. These people I’m referring to like serial entrepreneurs, you know what I’m saying? Like, my cousins all that, they just weren’t ever regular. And I’m younger than everybody that I’m around. I’ll just probably turn 40 in October. But my Peoples are still like one or maybe two, three, four grades higher than me and then beyond.
I always sometimes too, just to get the game. I like getting the game from people. So that’s probably why I like giving the game. But getting that from those people. I was able to tie in information that I learned in the streets, information that I learned at school. I felt like a dual-threat every time I came back to campus and then every time I went home, like, no matter where I went, they were asking me about the other side.
Don’t let them fool you. Every time I went to the hood and it wasn’t like just to kind of frame who I am. I’m not the one who came from a certain place and was looking out the project window and talking about these people. And then they do the story say, this guy came from circumstances. Like, no, these dudes are my boys, my friends. I come back to the block and tell them, look, man. I went to Virginia Beach, they’re like, for real? And I’m showing pictures from my throwaway camera, you know what I mean back then?
So it’s like my boys a lot of times at the time, they didn’t necessarily leave a hood. You know what I mean? They had a bunch of money, but they didn’t leave the hood. So I was like bringing that culture back and they’re like, hey, you put me up on game. And you know what? I’m coming with you. When you go back down, we would have a ball, you know what I’m saying?
Then I would go back to school and tell them like, no, it’s not teachers or professors and everything. Like, man, I understand where you’re going with this, but the people that you’re referring to, they see it like this. I was trying to get games on both sides the whole time. So I’m like a constant learner. I think that’s what it is. And I sponge and pick up off of people.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
That’s what’s up, man. It sounds like it’s just in you, which was probably leading up to my next question about what continues to motivate you. But it seems that the people around you is somewhat a piece of that a part of that motivation.
B DOS
They were. But I had to physically tell myself and ask myself, why am I doing what I’m doing. Because they say the heart works best when it beats for others, but after a while, you can get run down.
I remember getting to a point where I was like, man, I’m helping everybody that I can. I’m doing as much as I can and I’m lending a lot of my time. I’m leaving a lot of me, like, not just giving out money or not getting out, but giving money if somebody needed or something like that, but lending me because they’ll be able to take this and use more from it.
And after a while, I got burnt out. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to focus and go stupid. And if I do that, then maybe I won’t have so much on my plate because I get this out of the way. There’s no getting my family and friends out the way. This will always be.
Somebody will always have something or I may have something going on. So we’re going to need each other as long as we exist. But I can put this in a place where, okay, I can set this up. This can start working on his own.
When I’m sleeping, I can wake up and see orders. I can wake up or I can do the deals online and not too much heavy labor. So I’m like, all right, cool. Now there needs to be a point where it’s about I never try to wear a credit, you know what I mean? But I have to tell myself, like, you got to focus. I do that just to be able to get through it.
But there is lastly, I’ll say there is like an internal North Star to where I feel like if I don’t get the most out of the situation, it might sound crazy. I feel like if I don’t get the most out of the situation, then I’m totally disrespecting God’s creation because God put it there to be created and I ain’t doing it. And I’m supposed to be built like that to do it, you know what I mean? So I will put a little pressure on myself to make sure I kind of like, go as hard as I can go in attempts to execute whatever it is.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Right. To get to the point. You take it personally?
B DOS
Yeah, I take it personally.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Yeah. So with everything that you have going on from the Hustle Collective on down. Like, what is your marketing technique? How do you get the word out and get people knowing about it all?
B DOS
Great question. Great question. So first, for the NFT, the entity in itself is a way because it’s so new that people want to know about it. So say if I had t-shirts for sale or something, I could see the t-shirt, but you might say, okay, let me haul out or whatever.
But if it’s something that’s cutting the edge, something new, something that people might want to get a little game about, that kind of entices the customer or the people per se. And there you go.
So when you said in the beginning, a lot of people want to know about what NFTs are and things like that, I know that. I know they do. You see what I’m saying? So if I know about this and I make my own, then now I cannot only just tell you about mine, but educate you on how you could do the same thing.
Ours didn’t drop yet. But yeah, as far as that process is concerned, the reason why it’s a good process is because it takes a little time, but it’s good because you’re putting everybody in one place that’s about the same thing. Similar to groups on Facebook. Groups on Facebook.
If people don’t know, that’s another great place that I slept on for years. I slept on that for years. And then I’m like, man, it’s time we’re done building. I’m going to a case sometime and build, and then come out. And then now it’s time to show the world.
So the first thing I did was say, look, we’re open for interviews because we’re dropping our NFT and we’re dropping our next series from Hustleman, the cartoon. And the next day, or maybe that day, that night, you hit in the group and we didn’t know each other. Right?
So that’s what the groups do because everybody in this group, they’re all Black podcasts or about that business, about that industry in some kind of way. In your main Facebook feed, that’s everybody. That’s about everything, right? You know what I mean? So it took me a while to like, hold on, hold on. Marketing directly in your groups. I do the same thing in the NFT groups.
This was going on, started a whole discussion just about Snoop Dogg and got all these hits and news and comments because Snoop dropping, he got def road and all these things. So I have information on that. I don’t have to be an expert on NFT. I know about them. I’m an expert on Snoop Dogg. I’m an expert. You see what I’m saying?
So now when I’m speaking in that space, they’re listening and somebody tried to say something like, we don’t need labels. We see what happened last time when labels controlled things and all that. And I’m like, well, last time, labels were controlling things like that. Those dudes weren’t in position. These dudes were the ones that were getting jerks.
So you think that’s why Snoop gives so many people situations all the time. And he gives so many people. He gives so much love and so much game and opportunity. Think about all the rappers who got rappers now. They’re not jerking them, and they’re getting all of it. So it’s perfect for all of them to get into that.
Another thing is us having a cartoon. We didn’t want to just put that out on Facebook or put that out on any app that just posted. So what we did was say, hey, we’re putting this in the theater, you know what I mean? So we got one coming in April 2, and it will be our third installment.
But that’s another way. It’s like an elevated version of grassroots, because that’s tangible within people’s space. You can pull up right there and do it, but at the same time, you still get the quote unquote look that you’re looking for. That translates visually to whatever social service you want to post it on.
So you can have the physical event here. You can give out and sell clothing there. You can screen your show and network there. And then the second part of it is the next day, everything that came from the picture Gallery. We all in front of the marquee, the handshakes, the interviews, and all of that.
So it’s really, like building it. It’s really building it. It’s not like one thing. One little cheat code I’ll say is, now I scout, and when I go out to the club or something like that, because I don’t hang that off, and I’m always working or doing something. But when I go out from looking for certain things, certain people for voices, because need voiceovers for our cartoon.
I’m seeing people performing all that. I’m looking to see if they can fit or can they be the person that I need for them to be. But whoever it is, this artist has the following. So now I got this artist that’s in here, they’re bringing their following to the premiere. Plus, I bring my following to the premiere.
There’s other artists or other known characters or people that all collectively bring a lot of work collective that brings everybody to the table at the same time. If you just post a flyer and keep posting a flyer, you just gonna be posting the flyer. Like people don’t care about that. It’s too much going on, you know what I mean?
Which is why in those groups, the moderators will usually say, Introduce yourself, say the reason why you’re posting it. What are you trying to get out of this post? That’s a tip, too, you know what I mean? Ask me, what do you think? It’s tracked. Don’t just post a link of your song that nobody knows in a group or on things and then saying, nobody supported me. Sometimes it’s about how we present ourselves.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Yeah, definitely. Sometimes it’s about what you ask for. You don’t ask no one to listen to it. You know what I mean, you just posted. Yeah, man, you got to ask. I’m a big proponent of that. You got to ask for what you want.
B DOS
Just saying, share, somebody might be like, share it. All you do is put a link in there.
Rashad Thirlkill
Yeah, man, you’re right about it. So Hustlman – the superhero, as far as the cartoon is concerned, let’s jump into him and his antics and tactics and things.
B DOS
Yes, man, Hustlman a superhero, started out as a comic. I used to always draw, free-hand drawing. I’m a skilled freehand artist, but not technically trained. I didn’t take classes and learn to take these into some kind of little bulk and things like that.
I just do a bunch of Ninja Turtles and Art Simpsons and Miami heard all kind of little Logos characters. So, I can draw Flintstones, everything. I started out there, but we started meeting up and saying, hey, let’s pose and do the scenes that we want for the comic, and we can knock out more scenes and not just wait on me to sketch them all out. We’re like, all right, cool.
So we started doing that, and then we had the comic finish, and then just as we had the comic finish, we had an opportunity from a third-party developer to be able to make the cartoon. In my head, what we’re doing right now was end of 2023, Christmas premiere type. Not this year, you know what I mean? A while back, I mean, miles away.
So being able to do that was a blessing, get it done. And then also now that I was able to get the scene templates and everything, I can create the character. So, although I didn’t build the template, I didn’t build the model base itself. Everything after that I designed. So I’m going to give somebody some game real quick.
Before I even go further, our intellectual property, our IP, is good storytelling, and then the characters created, but we didn’t build the platform that is built on, and that is what we want to do ultimately.
So, it’s kind of like if you had a streaming service that you are trying to build up to go public, you won’t be able to go public without streaming service unless you own the intellectual property of the entire thing. See what I’m saying? We sell ours.
So first of all, we’re going to transition out of our current situation the way we’re creating, and then we’re going to bring in a team and then have those animators build out what we want to build out. And it might be different, might look a little different, or maybe a little elevated, and upgraded. But we’ll own it screw and through, as opposed to owning the story, owning certain values of it.
At the end of the day, I can sell you the this is the way that you ask, but I feel like it’s more important. It’s almost like being a dope rapper versus owning the company and knowing the difference on what comes back from it. But, yeah, the short of it is you want to own as much as what you’re doing as possible, and that gives you your IP or intellectual property.
So with us, we are on our third episode, Hustlman and Pro. Pro is short for the protector, and that’s played by my partner. They’re from another planet, planet Esther, and their planet is dying. So they’re tasked to go out and find some more steel, which powers their planet.
Now, where I’m from, Pittsburgh, is the steel City. Okay, so the steel Mills were all in Pittsburgh, and that’s why it’s called the steel City. That’s why we’re called the Steelers, because you’re a Steeler if you worked in the Mills.
So my family, grandparents, all kind of people. I got friends that still work in Mills. Now. It’s not like it was back then. Where I’m from, in particular, homestead, the borough homestead, which is, like, right on the city limit line. So half of the bridge is Pittsburgh, half of the bridge is homestead. And that’s kind of where they carved out, where they put the steel mills at.
Being from there, just hearing all the stories and everything from school, whatever else we made homestead still. This super powerful mineral, like Vibranium in Black Panther. So that’s why it powers their home planet. So they’re like, man, we’re out. We’re getting low, so our reserves are low, and our planet is dying. We got to go back. We got to go get some more homestead still.
Now, they originally left the steel here on this planet. We think it’s ours. We’re still city crazy. Pittsburgh is super powerful in that industry and what it did for America overall and everything else. So it’s like, just funny, the fact that means it isn’t ours since they brought it here first.
We had a struggle in the conversation of even making that part of the story because we felt like we were fighting on our own city, saying that it ain’t from us, it didn’t come from here or something.
So we try to be, like, as organic as we can to the point where we talk ourselves out of something that some sounds don’t make sense, but then it comes back around, but they get here and they come back in the 90s. That’s like when I’m a teenager. Young teens, 13, 14, 15. So I just remember how everything was.
I’m one of these people that shoot movies in my head daily when I’m walking around, so I remember a lot. So I’ll call one of my homies and say, remember, they’ll be like, now, why do you remember that? I’m like, the whole time I’ve been shooting, I’m supposed to be doing what I’m doing right now. I’m a reporter. I’ve been in these stories, you know what I mean?
When they’re moving around, they come back to a place that they don’t recognize. So they got to maneuver through the world. So that’s where the streets come in for them. It wasn’t necessarily about the streets itself. And I had a few people ask me that, and I had to clarify.
It’s called hustleman, but it’s not like a street cartoon, although there are street aspects to it. It takes place in the streets. But these people, it’s also sci-fi. They’re from another planet and really, like the undertones of it. The protector is somebody that sets up shop before hustlman gets to where time doesn’t matter.
So let’s just say still city for now. They don’t come to Pittsburgh. They come to steel City. That’s what it’s called in the story. They got to be able to afford this stuff they’re doing, you know what I mean? I’m answering questions that I had when I’m watching cartoons in New Zealand. Now, who paid for it? Those are the types of things I will see when we say, all right, cool.
Pro. He’s the hustler that you would kind of, like, identify with. He got 29,000 businesses, small, big businesses, insurance companies, car lots. He’s tied into the streets, all these types of things.
So when H comes down, he crashes hard. He got amnesia. So now he needs Pro to kind of take him around and help him get back and run things because he don’t know. H is built out of steel, and he can put his hand to the ground and pull minerals out of the ground like Magneto or somehow he can control steel similar. He can do that with all minerals.
So, this time they’ll just send out against steel. So that’s why he came back here. Him getting acclimated back to who he is a lot going on while he don’t know what’s going on at all. It’s like falling behind the protector, behind Pro until he gets his memory back.
He gets it back the same episode, but you don’t see him yet, like, turn up cars. He didn’t do anything yet. I got to stop this, too. Sometimes I’m not the character, and I got to tell my people that we ain’t them. They are characters, don’t think it’s them.
Sometimes, I put everybody else before my character because I want to see my people shine and all that, you know what I mean? And I’m like, H. His character will come along. I don’t want to just jump out there and have him just destroy everything. I want them to kind of learn who this dude is and learn about his home planet and things like that.
I’m kind of tying in a lot of his home planet to our homeland, our home motherland. And then the parallels of how H feels. That the way, although he’s the strongest and he time travels, he can fly, all these different things. He still feels like a rich slave real because he has to move at the hand of what his planet requires.
There’s a government there, you know what I’m saying? So dealing with all of these bureaucratical issues, he’s like, man, they just use me for that. And Pro built the same way because Pro, he’s a botanist, the chemist, he created a planet, Planet Mental. It’s a green planet. And that planet is the first green plant planet. That plant populated all the other planets.
So these dudes are, like, super old, really. They’re like millions of years old or something like that. They’re like the original for everything. And then now they just can just jump along to whatever time period, and then you get into all kinds of crazy stuff.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
How many episodes? Do you already have episodes planned out or will you just kind of be writing as you go?
B DOS
No, we’re a ten-episode season, and then we want to do, I think, a second season of Hustleman and then the third season is Pro Spinoff.
It will either be that or next season coming up. The second season might be Pro spinoff. It might be that, too. All the characters we build may have their own. They’re all like their own type of funny or own type of dope. The connect, he’s like the big drug dealer in the city.
But you know what? Anybody who’s watching this, check out Hustlcomics.com. Go to the dashboard, go to the entities and go to the dashboard.
You go to the dashboard. It has a character breakdown, like a ten-minute trailer. But each character kind of tells you what’s going on and why they exist.
So, with Connect, he’s like what you would know as the biggest boss around. Whoever you see right down the street, you look like Drigo, such and such. He’s that guy, but he got a boss. So pecking order is what’s coming across so far, and it’s how we wrote it.
But then there are certain things that just from creating and sending them back, they’re like, oh, it’s like the story started teaching us, and we’re like, man, so this top guy, the cartel guy, out of the country, he’s coming down on the Connect saying, hey, man, stuff was going on and the cops raising the spot and all that. I’m not sending you nothing else until you figure out what’s going on.
Then he cuts out his captain, and his captain goes to the block, and he’s yelling at everybody, we need to get this together. Then Lord. They’re cutting each other out like, look man, it happens like that in any part of life. Because on the flip side, when we’re talking about the government and the police, for that matter, the Mayor is coming down hard on the chief. The chief comes off as the man at first. So you got to go see the Mayor.
You walk in saying, what’s up, Henry? And everything’s cool, but he leave out like it’s Mr. Mayor to you. Then it’s like, oh, now you realize your level. You’re here. Now the chief, he got to go come down on the cops. Hey, man, get out there. Get this together. The cops got to crack it. This is real life that exists.
It just didn’t hop out and be pissed on their own. This is coming down from somewhere else talking about, I need results. I need numbers. I need this to be under this, or I’m not going to get another term. And if I’m not going to get another term, hands are going to roll. That’s how they talk.
So that pecking order always serves true. And if there’s something on the line for somebody, they’re going to make sure the person under it feels the proper pressure to get it done. And it’s going to go all the way down to the source, wherever it starts at or wherever it ends at.
A lot of times, people don’t realize that it starts way up here just because somebody has a certain position. So evading that I try to stay out of any of the pecking order and create as much as my own as I can. So I don’t have that pressure of somebody saying, hey, man,
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Yeah. When is the Premier?
B DOS
The premiere is in April, but we didn’t set the date yet because we’re still waiting to see if we are going to do it at just two different theaters that we’re looking at. And it’s just contingent upon code, really, you know what I mean?
Code. We kind of determine how many people can come into this place, what we can do in there. Sometimes in the past, we couldn’t serve drinks, we couldn’t serve food or anything like that. You had to keep your mask up the whole time and everything. But when we’re planning it, we’re like, when you come in, you’re getting a glass of champagne.
I come through, that’s the idea. Then somebody gets taken away because of the arrow wing right now, but it’s going to be in April one way or the other.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay. And how can people find you? What are your social media handles if they want to reach out?
B DOS
Yeah. So follow me on Twitter. @HustlComicsNFT. Hustle Comics NFT, which I blurted out, I just started that Twitter. I just brought out all these socials for the whole time I was working. Like I said, I’ll go in the cave.
Prior to that, all my social media was different. I lost that phone and I couldn’t get in none of those accounts. So, I had to start new ones. So everything that is sent now is that but Instagram, HustlComics, Facebook, Hustl Vibration, TikTok is HustlComics.
Let me think; YouTube. We’re about to do a YouTube campaign, too and that is Hustl Vibration right now. But I think I’m going to do a separate one just for comments because we’re starting to put out a bunch of clips because right now it looks like a bunch of clips but they’re all on private, you know what I mean?
So we didn’t really open or unlock them yet so I think we’re going to get into that hustlcomics.com. The clothes and apparel is shophustlcollective.com.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
All right, man, that’s what’s up. I appreciate you for coming on today.
B DOS
Thanks for having me bro, I swear.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
I’m going to follow the journey, definitely. I’m going to check into all the NFTs then I’ll circle back with you after your premiere and we’ll do this again. How about that, man?
B DOS
I got a couple of ideas. I’d like to either get the team on with you or the cast. The cast might be funnier. I feel like the cast might be crazy if we had a little thing like that where we can kind of ask them different questions and it will help me kind of hear what they think about certain things they might not tell me or something like that. So I could be cool too.
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Okay. We can put that together. No problem. Right, man? I surely appreciate it. Enjoy the rest. So yeah, I definitely support in any way I can, man. And I’m going to upload this and we’ll go to promoting this before your premiere so that way we can get you some views and people tuned in.
B DOS
Yes, sir. I appreciate it. Happy hustling!
RASHAD THIRLKILL
Same to you, man. Till next time.
B DOS
Yes, Sir.
