Carson Ting: Tips for Generating and Refining Your Product Ideas

[00:00:00] Carson Ting: Thank you so much for coming out tonight. Um, my name is Carson Tang. You came to the right event. Uh, I’m here to share my thoughts on, uh, creating my, you know, um, for the past two years, I’ve, it’s been a really wild ride and, uh, I’m very excited. to be here tonight. I’ve distilled as much information as possible down to like 30 minutes, 40 minutes.

[00:00:21] Carson Ting: Uh, so I hopefully, uh, this will be a worthwhile night for you guys. Uh, I wanted to kind of pass on what I’ve learned, the mistakes that I’ve, uh, I’ve come across and kind of shares, you know, my learnings and hopefully, uh, you’ll find it worthwhile. Um, so this all started, um, when I, I was thinking about like about my career for the past 20 years.

[00:00:48] Carson Ting: I’ve been in the, mostly the service industry, either I’m servicing for clients as an, as an art director for art direction or servicing clients as an illustrator. And I just [00:01:00] wanted to like, you know, think how I could future proof myself because, you know, over time, I’m going to be irrelevant. And it’s a fear, I have a fear of becoming a washed out creative and unable to offer any value with my work.

[00:01:18] Carson Ting: And. Through servicing clients, you know, it’s a very reactionary type of, uh, approach to work. It’s very reactionary. I want it to become more proactive. I want it to future proof myself, and I think with an IP or a product, I can, you know, potentially secure my future, because it’s going to be something that I can grow with, something that I could, um, uh, slowly build over time.

[00:01:42] Carson Ting: Something that’s more timeless. And through the service industry, like, I’ve done work for, like, You know, brands like Nike and stuff like that. It’s super cool at the time. I launch it. Then it’s like, it’s a bit of a come and go kind of thing. So, I’m searching for the next project, searching for the next project.

[00:01:54] Carson Ting: I want something to be a little bit more timeless. But, before I dive into it, I just want to really quickly kind [00:02:00] of give, uh, a bit of background, uh, from where I’m coming from. So that you can kind of, uh, you know, have a little bit more context of, uh, of why I’m doing this and why I’ve launched into, you know, Doing products and intellectual property.

[00:02:17] Carson Ting: And so I started in advertising as an advertising art director. I worked on lots of brands, such as Lexus, for Sony, for, I’m going to blast through these because I have 130 slides. Um, I’ve done work for Goodyear, um, for Markopolis, for Vespa, and then, put up your hands if you guys know Rethink. Thanks.

[00:02:39] Carson Ting: agency. Okay, great. Amazing. They’re one of the most awarded agencies in the world. Um, like just the one of the best agencies out there. So when I got the call to work there, I was over the moon. I flew out here and started, you know, to get to work. And I did lots of great work there. Uh, most [00:03:00] notably, you know, uh, this, uh, gold, gold billboard for science world.

[00:03:03] Carson Ting: Uh, it garnered a lot of, uh, uh, media attention. It was on the front page of Metro and 24 hours that day. I was on CBC TV. I look very young there, by the way. Um, time has not been kind to me. Uh, I’ve done some design work for the credit, uh, this little, um, uh, Credit Counseling Society. This business card turned into a credit card that’s cut in half.

[00:03:26] Carson Ting: Very clever. Won some awards for it. Um, did stuff for Dayton Boots. Um, with, uh, uh, my partner at the time, Rob Terry. And then, uh, Nike Jordan gave me a call. Not, not Michael Jordan himself, but the agency, Blast Radius, gave me a call to ask me to work for this brand and, um, I said yes. I, you know, I didn’t think it was possible to work at, to work on such a cool brand, a global, like, global work out of Vancouver.

[00:03:55] Carson Ting: So I said yes, and we did some great work. We did stuff for AG 2012. We did stuff for [00:04:00] the London, London Olympics. We went around the world shooting documentaries. It was super fun. But in the back of my head, um, I knew that I wanted something more because it was just, you know, like I said, it’s a service industry.

[00:04:13] Carson Ting: I’m kind of behind the scenes. I wanted to make a name for myself. I wanted to do more. And although advertising was super fun, you know, I got to travel lots. I got to go to festivals. I got to work with a lot of cool people, um, do really cool things. I just didn’t feel like I could truly flex my creative muscles, like artistically, I couldn’t really kind of flex my creative muscles.

[00:04:35] Carson Ting: And I felt like there was a lot of constraints. Uh, you know, like, make the logo smaller, make the logo bigger. Um, it just, uh, I wanted to do more. So, uh, during my off time, I started, you know, this side hustle called Chairman Ting. Started as a joke, and it’s kind of stuck. But, what I did was, I did a lot of, um, really kind of silly art projects with my friends, uh, that didn’t go anywhere.

[00:04:58] Carson Ting: Uh, it was just for me to [00:05:00] kind of really, as an outlet, to do something really artistic. And then, my friend, who’s here tonight, Alex, a really good friend of mine, uh, he’s a big inspiration to me, and he has always done, he’s, anyone know Alex Beam from Tangible? He does Graffiti Plus. Uh, great, awesome. So, um, less explaining for me to do.

[00:05:22] Carson Ting: But, um, you know, over the years I’ve watched how his business has grown, and he has his own intellectual property, he’s been doing so much stuff, um, just really pushing And he was telling me, Carson, you gotta quit advertising, man. It was like, advertising is just gonna suck you dry. You’re gonna, you gotta really put more time into your craft.

[00:05:42] Carson Ting: And see where it goes. And um, and I really took it to heart. And I really, uh, you know, set it to motion. I started saying no to freelance advertising art direction. And then I started talking to my, uh, accountant. I was like, hey, can I do this? Uh, I was looking at the numbers. I was [00:06:00] pulling in as an art director.

[00:06:02] Carson Ting: Uh, and then I was looking at the numbers of pulling in as an illustrator, and I started to see that I was actually pulling in more from illustration work, so it gave me, uh, confidence that I can do this, uh, with the blessing of my wife, of course, that we can still pay our mortgage. Um, so I forged ahead, and, uh, things went really well.

[00:06:21] Carson Ting: I started taking on projects for Nike. Uh, I did projects for, um, uh, uh, NBA, uh, Hershey’s, uh, big shout out to Hubert Kang for doing the shot for me, always making my stuff look great. Uh, I did stuff for Adidas here in Vancouver, Adidas, uh, in Shanghai, Adidas in Hong Kong. Um, stuff for Starbucks, for Mercedes, for Porsche, for Off White.

[00:06:48] Carson Ting: Again, big shout out to Hubert Kang for making me look great. Won a bunch of awards for Snoop Dogg, uh, for their 19 crimes. And also, big shout out to Hubert again, bringing me on for this, uh, Whitecaps, [00:07:00] uh, opener video. So we did stuff for Whitecaps, for the Red Bull, uh, for Toyota, for Microsoft, NHL. And then, uh, this is still, I think, it’s still up, uh, it’s for the North, former Nordstrom building.

[00:07:13] Carson Ting: Um, uh, it’s a big mural just down on Granville Street. But there was still something missing for me. Uh, I just felt like, you know, I’m doing all this work, which is great. And it’s a bit of a come and go and things are, they, they, they’re cool. I put it on LinkedIn, give people, give me a thumbs up rate, and then they forget about it the next week.

[00:07:33] Carson Ting: And I feel like, man, I really need to really capitalize on something that I can truly own. You know, you can argue that all the work that I’ve done is my IP. People see my work and they’re like, Hey, oh, that’s a chairman thing piece. Um, but I feel like I’m just riding the coattails of other brands. Which is fine.

[00:07:50] Carson Ting: I think, um, you know, doing that is fine, but it, it, I’m, I’m not really kind of like showcasing or owning something that I’ve done myself. [00:08:00] And, you know, you know, things are great, you know, I would win awards, um, and I would say, uh, that I still long for my own IP. But then, I started to notice one thing. I was looking at a lot, a lot of different artists around the world that I admire.

[00:08:15] Carson Ting: There’s a common theme. There’s a common thread. And it is that. They all have their own signature look. They all have, uh, a very, um, recognizable, uh, piece of graphic. Their own language. So Murakami, when you see the happy face with the flower face, you know it’s his work, right? There’s no doubt it’s his work.

[00:08:34] Carson Ting: It’s in his illustrations. It’s in his, uh, sculptures. It’s in his, um, merchandise. And then you’ve got Kusama, very prolific artist. You know, you see the dots. You instantly know that that’s her work. And, and then there’s Jeff McFetridge, huge fan of his work. You know, you look at his work and instantly you recognize it’s his work through the flat graphics and how everything’s so graphic.

[00:08:59] Carson Ting: [00:09:00] Um, and then you’ve got, uh, John Julian. You know, he’s got his illustrations where they’re, you know, really rough, uh, outlines with the inks. As soon as you see these rough outlines of his, uh, ink work, you know it’s a John Julian work. And then, uh, as all of this was stewing in the back of my head, this guy.

[00:09:20] Carson Ting: Gives me a call. He’s here tonight. Peter job. Um, he contacts me out of, uh, linked in, uh, and he was contacting me from a company called blockchain foundry. They are a, um, tech company based in the States, publicly traded. They do everything blockchain related. Um, and they were just getting into the NFT market.

[00:09:41] Carson Ting: And at this time, uh, NFTs at the time, I promised you wasn’t a dirty word. It’s a dirty word today. Um, and if these were everywhere, like I looked at social media, friends, and it felt like my entire world was talking about NFTs. But in retrospect, looking back, it was just a really insular bubble. [00:10:00] Um, it got to the point where my cousin, who’s a dentist in Alaska, was calling me to tell me about NFTs.

[00:10:07] Carson Ting: He was like, yo cousin, you should get into NFTs. I was like, okay, maybe this is a sign. Uh, and then some of you might hear, might not know what NFTs are, which is fine, because like I said, it’s a very insular thing. So I just googled it really quickly. Just to show you that it’s, um, what it is, is essentially it’s a, um, it’s a, it’s a ledger and it’s an open ledger and it’s verified by a bunch of computers on the internet, uh, and you can’t really cook the books, you can’t really mess around, so, uh, and then NFTs are on this blockchain, so it’s very secure and blah, blah, blah, um, but at this time, uh, as Peter was telling me, telling me to get into this NFT thing, I, uh, I was very reluctant to agree because I was very busy at the time.

[00:10:52] Carson Ting: I was drowning in work, and most notably I was working on this NBA mural. And it was taking up all my time, and I [00:11:00] really didn’t want to take another project at the time. But, but, FOMO is a big part of who I am. I didn’t want to miss out. I was hearing about it, I was just like, man, I really need to get into it.

[00:11:11] Carson Ting: Because who knows? Who knows what it’s going to lead to? So I said yes. Um, and then, so I did all the research. When you look at NFTs at the time, it was like, it’s always like a PFP, it’s a profile picture, 10, 000 collection, I knew it was going to be character based. So, all the stuff that I’ve been doing as an illustrator has always been, uh, character based.

[00:11:34] Carson Ting: Uh, and then, you know, bunnies being the core central theme of my work, it’s already carved up for me to do bunnies. This was the very first sketch I did in my day planner and I showed it to my wife. I was like, this is it, a billion buns. And she’s like, sure, whatever. I could tell that she couldn’t care less.

[00:11:54] Carson Ting: I was, but I was really excited. I got to work and we generated, uh, this collection. You’re the [00:12:00] first publicly, I’ve never really shown this collection to anyone. We generated 1000 of these and it was months of work and it was a month before launch. Uh, but something was bothering me about it. I was like, you know what?

[00:12:15] Carson Ting: I’m not feeling it. And I told Peter and the team at last known they’re freaking out. They’re like Carson, we only have a month and you want to change everything. I was like, yes, because most of my work is really inspired by motion. I need to have motion in my work and these look too static and they look kind of awkward where their hands are kind of like spread out like that.

[00:12:34] Carson Ting: And the idea was that they’re coming up from a different portal, blah, blah, blah. Um, but I, I forged ahead and I said, I’m going to do it. And I came up with this pile of 880 NFTs. Uh, and I was like, I was really feeling it because they’re all doing this motion, right? And there’s a lot of energy to it. And I was like, I’m going to go all in on this.

[00:12:54] Carson Ting: So we did 888 of these characters. I really didn’t know what to expect, to be honest. [00:13:00] Uh, so on January 10th of 2022, we decide to launch, didn’t know what to expect. And we sold out in 47 seconds. It was bananas. It was the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me. I couldn’t believe it. I remember sitting by my computer, looking at the sales.

[00:13:14] Carson Ting: And the numbers were going in, and it stopped within, like, within a minute. And I, I thought there was a glitch. And then I get a call from the guys at Last Known. They’re like, Carson, I was like, what? You sold out. I was like, what? I was like, yeah, all 47 seconds. All, all, 808, all gone in 47 seconds. It was wild.

[00:13:31] Carson Ting: And, um, We got written up in the Globe and Mail. We got written up on Yahoo! Uh, News, uh, Globe News, Wire, on the NASDAQ. Uh, and then I promised to donate proceeds to, you know, Uh, Charities that, that mattered to me, uh, so we donated to, uh, the UN Refugee Agency, uh, the Rabbit Society of course, um, BC Children’s Hospital and the Vancouver Food Bank, and Small Cures is a fr a friend of mine runs, [00:14:00] um, this foundation in Toronto for cancer patients who struggle financially.

[00:14:04] Carson Ting: Anyways, it felt great to give back. But this feeling like a champ feeling did not last long. Because, um, everything just started to feel like everything was falling apart because shortly after selling the war broke out, Russia, you know, invaded Ukraine, uh, inflation weights, inflation rates went up, um, interest rates went up, there was a lot of uncertainty, economy was not doing well, NFT market tanked, and everything was just stagnant, so all the Ethereum that I had earned became, like, it just fell off a cliff.

[00:14:40] Carson Ting: But, um, being, and then, yeah, so like everything, and this is what they call the crypto winter because everything was just not happening, but being the dummy I am, I was like, I’m going to double down. I don’t care. I’m going to forge ahead. Um, cause I still had this IP. All of a sudden I had this IP and I was calling everyone, [00:15:00] securing partnerships, talking and building.

[00:15:02] Carson Ting: And then, uh, I had the audacity to even launch another collection called the space buns. 3600 market was total shit, but I didn’t care. I convinced my friend Alex to, to join me in this new, you know, endeavor. But being the good salesman I am, I sold him on this idea and it was like, sure, let’s do it, Carson.

[00:15:26] Carson Ting: Um, so we got Alex, we got a car from daily hive. We also got Michael towel from factory labs and then we built this community. We, we launched a party, we had AMAs, we were building a community. Um, Um, I knew the market was down, but I knew that it’s going to come back up at some point, so this is the time to build.

[00:15:48] Carson Ting: Uh, and then we built a solid team. We had a, we had a really good solid team. And, um, it was super fun. We created all 3600 of these, uh, so I’m going to play a video [00:16:00] really quick. This video, uh, encapsulates what we did, and we, we did a promo video and everything. What’s that? I’ll hit it one more time.

[00:16:53] Carson Ting: So yeah, we went hard. We sold hard. Like, we were just pushing it. And then we went even as far as like, um, If [00:17:00] you buy an NFT, you get a physical one. Like a physical 3D. And, uh, we were just, we pulled all stops. We made everything. We just threw everything at it. Um, and, uh, And then we were like, you know what?

[00:17:14] Carson Ting: We’re sick of waiting because this was a time when the market was still crap. It was actually even worse. And we’re like, we’re like, We didn’t care anymore. August 5th is the day we’re going to launch, uh, because we’re still sick of waiting. And, um, we sold only a few hundred, but we knew that when we were going to get into it and there’s still thousands unsold.

[00:17:34] Carson Ting: Um, so it didn’t do as well as we, we wanted to, but we had a lot of fun and we learned, we built a community and, uh, we just kept pushing. Uh, and then things got even more weird and sideways. The company that. got me into this whole thing in the first place. Last Known was acquired by Wonderphi, which is, um, backed by Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank.

[00:17:59] Carson Ting: And, [00:18:00] uh, they bought it and decided to shut down Last Known. So all of a sudden, I’m all alone. I was like, where is everyone? I got no support from Last Known. And, uh, more importantly, I just realized, I was like, oh my god. I need them to sign this acknowledgement. I told, I was talking to my lawyer. They’re like, they have rights to your IP Carson.

[00:18:19] Carson Ting: I was like, Oh my God, this company that no longer exists own part of my company or own part of the IP. So I scrambled, I got my lawyer to draft a letter to the CEO of last known. Got him to sign this acknowledgement letter that I own a hundred percent of the IP, uh, before it was acquired. I got it.

[00:18:39] Carson Ting: Thankfully. And then the next thing was smart contracts. So smart contracts are basically a little code or algorithm that directs all the sales to your digital wallet. So I had to make sure that that was in my custody as well. So knowing that I got both of those things in place, and I got them back, I was ready to move forward with confidence because [00:19:00] I was already working on something really exciting.

[00:19:03] Carson Ting: And I wanted to make sure that I was in the clear. Which leads me to this Billion Buns show. So, all this IP that we’ve been building, I’ve decided to, uh, do an animated TV series. And, um, this is probably, you know, I’m thinking maybe the most important project that I’ll ever work on. Uh, it has, it’s not a thing yet.

[00:19:24] Carson Ting: We’re still building. We’ve been working on it for almost two years. And, um, I’ve been working with these talented folks, who’s here tonight. Keith Stride and Robert Turner. Big shout out to those guys. Uh, they’re legends. They run a company called Brand O Matic. Uh, a very successful, uh, production company.

[00:19:45] Carson Ting: And, uh, we also have, uh, this, this fellow here, Chris Bartleman. If you Google him on IMDB, his list of shows that he’s produced is just, uh, amazing. He basically produced all the TV shows [00:20:00] that I watched as a kid, like Care Bears, Care Bears. My little pony. Um, so we have this all star team we’ve been working on for two years, almost two years, and we’re going to try and finish it this year and hit the road and try to sell it to studios.

[00:20:14] Carson Ting: And so that’s been, what’s been keeping me really, really busy for the past 20 months. Um, so it’s been a long journey, so I’ve distilled everything down as much as I can. Um, seven takeaways, seven tips for you guys to, um, Take note. The first, I learned this when I was working at Rethink. Don’t try to hit it out of the park the first time.

[00:20:38] Carson Ting: Nobody hits a home run at the first bat. So instead, my, uh, Chris Staples, I learned this from one of the three founders at Rethink. He told me, he says, a lot of creatives, the biggest mistake is that when they always try to hit it out of the park the first time. It never happens. So instead, he said, just write down an idea, try to improve upon it, [00:21:00] Really, even if it’s really, get all the bad ideas out first, get it out of your system, and then improve upon that.

[00:21:07] Carson Ting: Um, and then improve it by increments. In Japan, there’s a philosophy called Kaizen, and Kaizen is a philosophy where you improve over a continuous time, just small increments. So, these small little increments can lead to really big future impacts. Thanks. And, uh, it’s something that I, I truly believe in and it really kind of takes out the edge and the, and the, um, uh, you know, takes out the, the fear of, of really hitting a really home run idea.

[00:21:41] Carson Ting: Start, so, just start somewhere. Number two, don’t be too precious about your ideas. Uh, I know a lot of my friends, uh, You know, they overthink their ideas. They keep it really close to themselves because they’re afraid of people stealing their ideas. They’re afraid of people kind of laughing at them. Um, I think, I encourage people to share their [00:22:00] ideas.

[00:22:00] Carson Ting: People who you trust because, uh, I think cross pollination and collaboration is a very beautiful thing and it can lead to very strong things. Um, and when you share your ideas, uh, in a, you know, not in a precious way, you know, you can start peer reviewing. You know, talk to people, getting their opinion, getting them to poke holes at your ideas.

[00:22:21] Carson Ting: For one thing, I know I’d like to vocalize my ideas. Uh, I need a sounding board, I need to talk to people. I can’t just sit there. Ideas become abstract in my head. And so I really, uh, encourage people to, uh, share their ideas and just don’t be too precious about your ideas. Um, and one other, you know, thing that, you know, uh, that really kind of, uh, helped me also from Rethink is that Your first idea could be your very best idea, but you won’t know that until you’ve done your hundredth idea.

[00:22:51] Carson Ting: Um, number three, something, create something that makes you happy. I know, I’ve, I’ve been a victim of this, where I try to create work [00:23:00] to please a certain audience, and it never works out, because I’m miserable creating it, and it’s not really truly who I am. I would always encourage people Encourage people to create something that makes them happy because even if you don’t find your audience how sad You’re still gonna make yourself happy.

[00:23:16] Carson Ting: That’s your instant reward right there And I think I truly do believe that over time if you do what you love You’re gonna find your audience and I want to share this video that has really resonated with me. I’ve shown it to everyone. I know It’s a interview with Seth Rogen. It’s only it’s really short like 30 seconds[00:24:00] 

[00:24:13] Carson Ting: Yeah, it’s just gotta keep doing what you do, what you love, you know, so, um, Number four, um, build a team with a diverse skill set. Uh, I don’t know how to do 3D. I don’t know how to animate. I don’t know how to code. I don’t know how to write. Uh, I get help from other people. If I try to do everything myself, I’m never going to make it, and I know I’m going to burn out.

[00:24:35] Carson Ting: Um, for one thing, so the Billion Buns Project, the Space Buns Project, I didn’t do the 3D, I didn’t do the animation, you know, actually I don’t know what I did, but, um, But you get it, when you have a solid team, you know, they really help kind of, you know, make your ideas come to life. And it’s fun, you know, creating stuff with your friends.

[00:24:55] Carson Ting: Um, you just gotta be a really good salesman, you know. [00:25:00] Um, and then there’s the unsung heroes. This is Lionel Louis. He’s my production artist, uh, assistant at the studio. He’s been helping me with all my social posts. He’s been doing a lot of production work for Everything Billion Buns. He works tirelessly behind the scenes.

[00:25:15] Carson Ting: Um, so I have a lot of help. And, um, number five. Don’t be afraid to make pivots. I actually made this slide change last minute. Talk about irony here. It’s never too late to make a change, because there’s nothing worse than making, moving forward with the wrong idea. Which is why, you know, this Billion Buttons show that we’ve been working on, it’s been almost two years.

[00:25:39] Carson Ting: Because we’ve made so many pivots, we kind of went full circle. Um, just, you know, making it right the first time is critical. So don’t be afraid to make pivots, no matter how late in the game. Uh, because there’s really nothing worse than going forward with the wrong idea. You’re, uh, you know, with an idea that you don’t believe in.

[00:25:59] Carson Ting: Just like going back [00:26:00] to this, right? I, I really don’t believe in it, although my wife thinks this is a better rendition of my current one. Um, but I, I just, it didn’t cut it for me personally. Um, number six, write down your ideas on paper. I think this is why everyone’s got a piece of paper here. Write it, write it down on, on, uh, write your ideas on paper.

[00:26:19] Carson Ting: Something magical happens when you write your ideas on paper. Uh, I learned this from you and Grace. It’s, it becomes closer to reality, it becomes almost a real thing, and, this is not backed by science, but I do believe that if you write down your ideas on paper, part of the brain offloads, you know, that information onto a piece of paper, and you can generate more ideas, there’s more space.

[00:26:43] Carson Ting: Again, not backed by science, but that’s what I believe in. Uh, number seven, last but not least, leverage. There’s no shame in leveraging off your contacts or friends. We all have our friends, we all have our circle of, uh, networks, our clients, [00:27:00] leverage off of them. And when you look at the definition of leverage, it’s moving really heavy things that you can’t with a lever.

[00:27:08] Carson Ting: Uh, it’s really kind of being smart about your time. So, leverage, you know, like, so this other story, going back to my cousin from Alaska, that’s a dentist. Turns out that he runs a, uh, Investor group with 50 people of high earners they he showed billing bunch to them. They went all in they’re like, this is so cool So big thanks to Joe Wang for my cousin from Alaska Because you never know who can open that magical door for you That will enable you to go from zero to 100.

[00:27:40] Carson Ting: It just takes that one person to make that happen So I Yeah, I covered everything on the slide. So, I’m just gonna go through this really fast. Uh, these are the things that I’ve leveraged through Billion Buns. Um, so this, uh, mural project came to me from Cadillac Fairview. They’re [00:28:00] like, Carson, we want your art to beautify the area, blah, blah, blah.

[00:28:03] Carson Ting: I was like, I know exactly what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna put Billion Buns there and everyone’s gonna be happy and uh, they bought it. So now I have advertising for Billion Buns all along Granville. Um, and This one, this is a mural in Toronto, in Ossington. An architect in Toronto contacted me to do a mural for their client.

[00:28:25] Carson Ting: And, uh, I was like, I know exactly what I’m going to do. Billion funds. There you go. Another piece of advertising for me. Client’s happy, I’m happy, everyone’s happy. Um, I wanted to do merchandise. This hoodie shamelessly promoting. Uh, I wanted to do merchandise and I remember talking to Stacy Hall who owns make Vancouver.

[00:28:44] Carson Ting: I did work for her 10 years ago and I remember her doing print on demand stuff. So I gave her a call. I was like, Hey, I got an idea for you. She goes, what is it? I was like, this NFT, she goes, what’s an NFT? I was like, don’t worry about it. I’ve got this, all these characters I would love for you to print and do, you know, [00:29:00] all this stuff.

[00:29:00] Carson Ting: And she was like, great. I love it. We’ve, it’s been three seasons, like we’re three, you know, call it season, right? Yeah. Three collections of billion buns. We did t shirts, we did hats, we did, uh, this, this, this, uh, hoodie. And then, um, dragon boat, dragon boat, Dominic lie marketing director at, uh, dragon boat was like, Hey, Carson, I would love to you for design one of these dragon boats.

[00:29:24] Carson Ting: I was like, great. I got an idea for you. Billion buns. Um, and, uh, yeah, You know, he loved it, and it represented diversity, blah, blah, blah. Um, so now it’s forever immortalized on Falls Creek every year. You’ll see this Billing Buns boat, uh, be on the water. And from, from Dominic Lai, the person that got me to Pacific Concord’s dragon boat, I was able to meet Lorraine Lau, uh, Lorraine Tao from, um, uh, The Dr.

[00:29:55] Carson Ting: Sen at Sen Garden in Chinatown. They wanted an exhibition, and I was like, I got an idea [00:30:00] for you, a billion funds! So we got to work, we did a solo exhibition there, it was great, it was the Year of the Rabbit, so all the stars aligned. I was able to make this happen.

[00:30:11] Carson Ting: and then BCAA, a client of mine, I’ve worked on for years. Uh, they wanted to celebrate their one millionth membership. It was like a big milestone, they wanted to, um, celebrate You know, really, uh, kind of reward their employees, 1, 500 of them, with something cool. I didn’t ask for this. They actually asked me to do an NFT.

[00:30:31] Carson Ting: I was like, are you sure? You guys are a hundred year old Crown Corp. You guys want to do NFTs? They’re like, yes! Okay. So, I rolled up my sleeves, got Alex back. Beam and his team to help me out to build 1, 500 of these unique digital collectibles. I didn’t want to use NFTs anymore. Digital collectibles sounded way more or less sketchy.

[00:30:49] Carson Ting: We did, we did, uh, we did swag, we did bags, we did a commemorative coin. So with the billion buns on there, we called it BC buns. [00:31:00] And I do work for the Learning Disability Society. They asked me to sponsor a charity event. I was like, I got swag for you. We’re gonna print billion buns on these golf balls.

[00:31:09] Carson Ting: They loved it. Uh, we gave them out at the event. Skip the Dishes is also one of my clients. Uh, they asked me to do a mural for the head office. And I snuck a couple of Bill and Buns in there. Uh, now it’s everywhere. Uh, which is great. I was like, that’s exactly what I wanted. Um, City of North Vancouver. Um, I’ve been working on them for four years.

[00:31:29] Carson Ting: And, um, it’s finally getting installed this year. It’s a permanent art installation in North Vancouver. By link by mountain highway. It’s a new community center. They wanted a permanent art installation and I sold them on a billion buns art sculpture. It’s a lot like it’s big. It’s like a one to one size It’s gonna be at the community center getting installed this summer.

[00:31:51] Carson Ting: We also did a mural also with billion puns You see where I’m getting at right? I’m just really leveraging off of my clients [00:32:00] This is a candle company, a bougie candle company in Toronto called Candle. It’s in Yorkville. It’s, uh, Drake does his candles there too. They’re like, Carson, the owner was like, Hey, I want you to do a series.

[00:32:10] Carson Ting: I was like, Okay, I got one for you. Billing buns. Boom. We’ve got one. And, uh, this was, uh, part of their campaign last year. Winter Arts Festival. We got these buns into the festival. Um, Wise Tea, also a client of mine. And, I called Max, the owner, up. I was like, hey, I want to do a limited edition. He was like, what do you want to do?

[00:32:31] Carson Ting: I was like, you guessed it, billion buns. Sold him on it. So we had, did, uh, uh, I don’t know, 2, 000 of these last summer. So that was great exposure for both, both brands. Win win. Um, this is for Canada’s only two Michelin star chef. He’s got a couple restaurants that he’s been opening up all over Toronto. Um, And they wanted me to deck out their restaurants.

[00:32:56] Carson Ting: And so I did this one for the Yorkville one [00:33:00] and I gave them, you know, the billion buns stuff in there. So a lot of high profile clients are there. So a lot of great exposure for me. And then they have another restaurant on Ossington and downtown Toronto again, billion buns. So now let’s get interactive.

[00:33:14] Carson Ting: I’ve done my, I’ve done my, my entire presentation. So this interactive part component is that I want everyone here to write down their ideas. If there’s an idea, I’m sure everyone’s got an idea in the back of their heads that they want to do and, but they’re stuck. What’s stopping you from making it a reality?

[00:33:32] Carson Ting: So my tip was to write down your idea on a piece of paper because it becomes this much closer to reality. And then I want you to share it. I want you to, um, connect with all these amazing people around here. I’m, there’s the connections here is just amazing to see all these different You know, walks of life, people from different professions, and maybe someone in this room can make your idea come to life.

[00:33:57] Carson Ting: Um, so write down your ideas now [00:34:00] and, you know, to push it into motion. And there’s never the perfect time to launch an idea. Now is the perfect time because Kaizen, right? You gotta improve upon time. Uh, just write it down on a piece of paper, share it with people, and see what other people think. Um, And, uh, what else?

[00:34:22] Carson Ting: Oh, I think this is your slide now. Thank you. I blasted through it really fast.

[00:34:29] Ami Sanyal: Thanks so much. Alright, so we’re going to do this interactive component now. As Carson has instructed us, we are going to start by spending a couple minutes writing down your ideas. Once you’re ready, turn to the person sitting beside you.

[00:34:44] Ami Sanyal: Preferably somebody you don’t know, and talk about it. Talk about your blocks, talk about what’s, what’s going on, while I’m stopping you from moving forward. We’ll spend a few minutes doing that, and then, uh, we’ll keep, keep things moving.

[00:34:58] Ami Sanyal: We’re gonna do some Q& A [00:35:00] right now. Um, so, if you guys have questions, please raise your hand. We’ve got a mic we’re gonna run to you, um, and, uh, you’ll kick it off.

[00:35:09] Carson Ting: Okay, hit me.

[00:35:10] Attendee: Thanks a lot, Carson. That was awesome. That was impressive. I’ve been watching you for like a lot of your career here since you came to Vancouver and I kind of forgot just how much stuff you’ve done.

[00:35:18] Attendee: Like, that’s insane. That’s crazy. So it’s so good to see. And I was just having a conversation about just kind of That the work ethic and, uh, you know, what it takes to really make what you have done and what it takes to pull that off. And so that’s, that’s certainly not easy. And, you know, West Coast kind of has this reputation for kind of being slackers.

[00:35:37] Attendee: And you’re definitely not slacking. So it’s, it’s really good to see someone from Vancouver that’s really taking that to that next level. So I thought I’d just open it up to, um, I think Sam had a, she had a question about, Um, yeah, Carson, you were talking about, you alluded to this idea of like, all you gotta be is like a good salesperson.

[00:35:55] Attendee: And so I was kind of curious if you had any like key points [00:36:00] about like what it takes to be a good salesperson or if we could even maybe hear a little bit of your elevator pitch.

[00:36:05] Carson Ting: Yes, I think sales is a really dirty word as well. Um, you’re not supposed to be sales, saying sales. Like, I, if, I think if you’re talking to people really passionately, you’re already selling, inherently selling, without you even knowing, and without the other person knowing.

[00:36:20] Carson Ting: So, you know, you know, when I tell like a lot of friends, like, you know, like they’re trying to make cold calls, I was like, don’t make it into a sales pitch. Just ask them out for a coffee, or just talk to them. Build that trust. And just talk about your ideas passionately when you do have, you know, the, the right segue in.

[00:36:39] Carson Ting: Um, and I’m not saying to, you know, have any hidden agendas or anything, but just being, if you’re passionate about your idea, I think people would really, uh, feel it from you. And, uh, they would be, you know, sold on it without them knowing. Uh, so I, I, I, the word, I, I hate using the word sales, but it is sales at the same time.

[00:36:57] Carson Ting: Um, but yeah, [00:37:00] hope that answers your question. Okay.

[00:37:06] Computer: Hey, great, great chat, thanks. Um, I want to know, first, uh, for the NFTs, you had 888 of them, why? And the other is, when you use your IP for, uh, for, like, these other stores and stuff like that, are you licensing it to them, or how does that all work?

[00:37:23] Carson Ting: Yeah, so, first question, 888, uh, is a homage to my dad’s, uh, my late dad’s license plate.

[00:37:29] Carson Ting: It was TNG888. We had a Dodge K car, a Reliant K car. Uh, he thought it looked like a Mercedes. A little bit more information than you needed. Uh, for the, for the licensing, yeah. So I have a lawyer, uh, that I, uh, use, uh, to license stuff, stuff out. I don’t use her every single time, because that would, you know, break the bank.

[00:37:47] Carson Ting: But, uh, really it’s just, um, uh, writing contracts that, uh, it is, that is your IP and that you’re licensing them for a certain amount of time. And, uh, there are these restrictions that [00:38:00] are in place where they’re not allowed to use it to sell or, uh, just to really use it for the purpose that they’ve used, uh, that they’ve commissioned you for.

[00:38:08] Carson Ting: So fairly straightforward, uh, nothing crazy. Um, yeah, I hope that answers your question. Okay, great.

[00:38:17] Attendee: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the fun talk, Carson. Um, so you mentioned a few times that you’ve worked with these really big, well known companies, and I’m really interested to know, how did you start to approach these bigger companies to become your client, and if you have representation that’s doing it, do you have any insight into how to, I guess, pitch yourself to these companies?

[00:38:42] Carson Ting: It’s all about connections. Um, I worked in advertising for so long, for two decades. Uh, a lot of my friends, uh, that I used to work with, they’ve gone to higher places and they remember me, uh, during the advertising days, and they would hit me up for these projects. Uh, so trust is a big thing. Uh, being able to [00:39:00] not burn bridges, uh, to make enough connections.

[00:39:02] Carson Ting: So, like, I really encourage everyone here to really make that connection. Because all those people that I’ve connected with during my days in advertising, they’re amazing. Uh, we’re critical to the work that I’ve been doing. Uh, one example, you know, uh, Jordan Doucette, she was my very first partner in Toronto.

[00:39:18] Carson Ting: She moved to higher places, she went to Chicago to become the global creative director for Kellogg’s. And so she called me up to do, re imagine Tony the Tiger. That would never have happened if I did not work with her back in the day. So just being able to connect with those people and stay in touch with them, um, That’s how, you know, how I were able to get those projects and just also shamelessly kind of promote yourself on LinkedIn and social media.

[00:39:44] Carson Ting: You’re welcome.

[00:39:51] Attendee: Uh, thanks very much for a great talk. I’m feeling super inspired. I’m, uh, curious to know how you landed on bunnies and whether you [00:40:00] did, uh, explore other characters.

[00:40:03] Carson Ting: No, I only went with bunnies because bunnies has always been the central theme of my work. I had two rescued bunnies, that’s where they came from.

[00:40:10] Carson Ting: Uh, one lived to 14 years old. My studio mate, one up to me, Hubert, his bunny, he was like, I have a bunny too. I was like, oh yeah, how long did it live? He was like, 15 years. I was like, oh my god, okay, you win. Anyway, so bunnies has always been a soft spot for me, so.

[00:40:26] Attendee: Is there anyone on the, this side of the room here?

[00:40:30] Attendee: Thank you. Great chat. Um, I’m just curious because in advertising you go from art director to creative director. Was there a reason why you didn’t want to go into the creative director work because you stopped creating? Was that because unfortunately that’s kind of like the role you kind of end up guiding more than creating yourself?

[00:40:44] Attendee: Is that why?

[00:40:45] Carson Ting: Yes, that’s an excellent question. As soon as you become a creative director, you become more of a people manager. I’m not much of a people manager. I can hardly manage myself. So you stop creating and, uh, and the fun is, is not there for me. And, uh, that’s [00:41:00] why I never pursued going further up.

[00:41:03] Attendee: Thank you.

[00:41:07] Attendee: Thanks Carson for, uh, being here and spouting some wisdom. It’s really nice. Um, NFTs, they scare the hell out of me. I, I don’t know why. But is it still, like I have, like you said, I have some people that know more about things than you do, and I do have some friends that really just investigated the hell out of these things and I don’t think they, you know, made a move on it when it was happening.

[00:41:32] Attendee: Is it still happening or?

[00:41:34] Carson Ting: No.

[00:41:34] Attendee: Yeah.

[00:41:35] Carson Ting: The quick answer is no. It’s still stagnant. I think we’re way too early in the game. Yeah. I think there’s only probably 2 percent of the people in the world, I just made that stat up by the way. Right. Only know NFTs. Um. Uh, it’s still very, very early and I’m just, uh, I can’t wait to see how far it can go, uh, in the future when they start putting utility to it and everything.

[00:41:56] Carson Ting: And just, right now it’s a very exploratory kind of phase.[00:42:00] 

[00:42:04] Attendee: I’m wondering if you’ll tell us about the show. Like, what, what is it gonna be like? Can you give us, give us any little, uh, peek behind the curtain?

[00:42:12] Carson Ting: Yeah, so the show, uh, very excited about. We’ve kind of, um, modeled, uh, uh, We’ve referenced Paw Patrol many, many times. I have two small kids, they watch only Paw Patrol, so I’m like, I gotta get in on this action.

[00:42:26] Carson Ting: Um, but then we’ve been, we’ve been doing a lot of research among ourselves and we’ve kind of pivoted away from that and moved, edged a little bit older to a more teenage mutant ninja turtles kind of area. Uh, they’re obviously based on bunnies. Uh, we have, uh, you know, five core characters. Um, that are in the show, and we’ve got the personalities kind of nailed.

[00:42:49] Carson Ting: And now we’re just kind of, uh, writing down different episodes, uh, to see what sticks. And, uh, it’s gonna be a really fun one. Uh, when it does happen, so fingers crossed. [00:43:00] Yeah.

[00:43:02] Attendee: Okay, why don’t we do a couple more questions? Oh. Hey, Carson. How did you find, I guess, your first audience, your first set of customers?

[00:43:10] Attendee: Did you already have an audience from content somewhere? Or did you, like, leverage your client base or people you knew from your previous work? Or how did that come about?

[00:43:19] Carson Ting: Yeah, no, just very organically. Um, you know, I don’t have a huge following. Uh, I just basically post stuff out there. Uh, and just kind of one by one, I kind of leapfrogged from one from the other.

[00:43:29] Carson Ting: And kind of really leveraged, uh, off of the last project. My very first mural project was for Hootsuite. But Hootsuite was still under, um, Invoke, and then, obviously, Hootsuite kind of superseded Invoke.

[00:43:41] Attendee: I mean, for the first edit you said.

[00:43:43] Carson Ting: Oh! How did

[00:43:44] Attendee: you get the

[00:43:45] Carson Ting: flag? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I did, I did a lot of, uh, background sales.

[00:43:49] Carson Ting: Um, I had the teams from Last Known to do marketing. Uh, they did press releases, they did all sorts of marketing. I was constantly pushing stuff out there. And back to [00:44:00] Joe, my cousin in Alaska. Turns out that he’s got this crazy investor group. Uh, that got in on it. I told my brother, who’s a banker in Hong Kong, he’s got a bunch of investors.

[00:44:12] Carson Ting: So, it was just like calling up everyone that I knew, uh, to get in on this Billion Buns thing. And that’s how it kind of happened. It was just like picking up good old phone calls, you know, calling them up, like, hey, I’ve got this thing going on, telling them about it, and getting them excited.

[00:44:27] Attendee: Yeah,

[00:44:29] Carson Ting: yeah. And then also, obviously, Last Known, uh, their, uh, big marketing team there, they were able to, like, seed a lot of the stuff.

[00:44:37] Carson Ting: And talking on Discord, I didn’t even know what Discord was about at the time. Uh, and so they went into different Discords, talking to people, they had all these people doing that for me, so.

[00:44:47] Attendee: Okay, I’ll take another question, maybe our last question from here, I’m sure you’ll be sticking around after if people want to, uh, ask you something.

[00:44:53] Attendee: Thank you. Thanks, Carson, for the amazing, uh, talk. And also, yeah, I found it very [00:45:00] inspiring, um, One question. I know you’re passionate about bunnies, you already said that. But do you ever get bored of just drawing bunnies?

[00:45:12] Carson Ting: I do. I do. How do you navigate that? My work, I do a lot of different client work. So it allows me to draw non bunny stuff.

[00:45:22] Carson Ting: So, thankfully. Otherwise I’d be bored. Yeah. I hate bunnies.

[00:45:31] Ami Sanyal: Alright, I think, uh, we’ll give one more round of applause for Carson for that amazing insight.