I first heard about HDL corp. - hygienic dress league - from my friend djskeez. Skeez knows the score so I was all ears. I then joined HDL's twitter space to learn more. After listening to Steve and Dorota Coy, HDL's founders, I was in.
What first jumped out at me was the two founders are righteous, humble, and transparent. They're investing in community through their art. They put their business plan out there for anyone to read. They admit they don't know what they don't know.
And I think they've got a big idea. HDL wants to create an NFT that pays dividends. If so, they'll be breaking new ground.
You can read more about Steve and Dorota in these two articles:
https://www.metrotimes.com/arts/hygienic-dress-league-climbs-the-corporate-ladder-with-its-most-ambitious-project-yet-16633711
I posted some questions about the project to Steve and Dorota in their discord. They were honest and open with their answers. I have not come across one project that's provided this level of detail and transparency. Read through this, it's impressive –
Me: You're sitting next to someone at a bus stop. They turn to you and ask, "So what do you do"? How would you explain HDL in terms they'd understand, and, easily tell others about?
HDL: I would say that my wife and I are artists and we do a broad range of or that is concept based, but also create digital work, large sculptural work, and performance art. HDL is a company that we created as a new form of art. We are currently working to sell shares of that corporation so people can own a piece of the art. We are also releasing digital collections of work on the blockchain. The plan is to share profits from this artwork with shareholders. We want to create totally unique and engaging works of art and experiences for collectors of art both shareholders and non.
Me: From your Mission Statement: "We intend to commission additional artists to create new works on our smart contract, for which shareholders will be whitelisted...". There's many NFT projects that have offered allowlist (sorry, I'm with the woke crowd on this one -- we can do better than whitelist) opportunities as a hook. Near as I can tell, 99.9% of them have or are going to fail. What makes you different?
HDL: Thanks for the suggestion and we agree – allowlist needs to be used. These are being updated. Love suggestions and power from the community.
We believe we are different since we are practicing artists for 15 years with a lot of success. We have been operating both aesthetically and functionally in ways that web 3 are operating now. We feel the technology has caught up to support the type of artists that we are. We are extremely creative and have fun ideas on our to market and distinguish ourselves from the rest as we have always done in the past. We really enjoy making unique art and experiences. We know we can have fun and work hard to hopefully capture the imagination of others. We are also good collaborators from so many past experiences, and we want to work with / listen too, rely on our community to help guide us – this is where the real fun comes in.
Me: I'm not at all a fan of doing well to do good. As Anand Giridharadas writes in his seminal book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, doing well to do good is to stand on someone's back while saying you're helping them. Corporations everywhere do it all day every day. For example here in CO Coors used to make a big deal out of giving money to progressive causes. But for every $1 they gave, they gave another $1000 to squash progressive causes. If I was to research who you're connected to, who you're taking money from, would I find a connection to Betsy Devos? Would I find doing well to do good? I see you're connected to the Knight Foundation. Any skeletons in the closet there?
We believe our support of other artists is to not stand on their back but to help grow a network and community leveraging everyone’s network. This is a case of mutual benefit. We do not have any skeletons in the closet that we are aware of. We do try to be aware of people and what they stand for and make connections to people we feel align with our morals and values. We really try to associate with people who are better for humanity than not. We do not nor have we ever been involved with anything oppressive. Our work is about raising awareness about the destruction of our own civilization by not caring for the planet or others.
Me: I read that "the company will “hire” a collection of 55,554 employees, or NFTs". Does this mean you're eventually going to sell 55,554 NFTs?
HDL: For our SEC application we removed any language about releasing any collections other than the upcoming on. We do however have artwork ready to release a generative collection at a very large number. We would want to work with our community to talk about what we should do. We have a really fun idea about creating employees of the corporation, this is imagery we have used in the narrative of our corporation for over 15 years now. There is a system of promotion and demotion that we talked about so collectors could exchange the art for new ones making the collection deflationary. This is something we would love to talk with the community more about but yeah, we have some unique ideas and approaches when it comes to collections an d artwork.
Me: How will you be transparent? How will we know that you and Dorota won't be the biggest benefactors of this project? Will be able to track all expenses and revenues somehow, either via the blockchain or you publishing your financials?
HDL: With the SEC filing our financials on the project are already transparent. If you google us and search through the pages, you can see the audited reports online. Additionally, our circular offering document filed with the SEC discusses how money from the raise will be used. If we do not get SEC approval we will of course continue to make art. The SEC is working to protect investors and we will continue to implement practices we have learned from trying to approve our public offering. Dorota and I do want to benefit of course, but not to the detriment of the project. We are open to transparency and fully buy in to the Web 3 transparency. If we can we will make our smart contracts pay directly to shareholders if we get the approval We have nothing to hide about who we are or what we have done and will do whatever necessary to earn the trust. We know there have been a lot of bad actors in the space and we have fallen victim as well. They are on all sides of the industry.
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HDL has a free mint coming up tomorrow. If you miss that one, their next mint is coming soon thereafter. Give HDL some of your time. I think you'll be impressed.
