Yummi Universe

What’s your project name?

Yummi Universe

Who are you and your role with the project?

Shannon & David. We’re the founders of Yummi Universe!

How did you meet your co-founders/team?

"We met each other in school at around 12 years old and have been besties ever since. The rest of our team joined us throughout our journey in the cNFT space, they all started as fans & worked really hard to become part of our team. We couldn’t imagine doing this without them now, they’re awesome! "

What does a typical day look like for you and your team?

"Yummi Universe is more than just an NFT Project. We’re a whole lifestyle brand, with lots of different and exciting parts to it. Which means there’s always a lot to do!

We all have tasks to do throughout the day, and everyday is pretty different - especially if we have any special events happening.

Shannon is the caretaker of the brand, meaning she is in charge of anything merchandise, marketing and brand related. Her day is spent designing new merchandise, packing orders and making social media posts like creating fun new Naru illustrations! She also works on NFT artwork.

David is involved in every single part of the brand, but mostly spends his day managing the “NFT” side of things. Currently this means most of the day is spent finalising artwork for the Summer Seasonal drop, coming up with concepts, creating characters (with Axl) & writing the Whitepaper (with team members). His day also includes managing assets, partnerships & budget for further Developments. All big decisions go through David, so he spends a lot of time talking to & managing the team to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Our team spends most of the day working on the technical & social side of things; building new & maintaining existing products. Debugging the staking platform, managing partnerships, providing $YUMMI utility and chatting on the discord is all part of their day. Some of the team also help to manage our Twitter account. Most of all, they ensure the community is always engaged in the happenings of Yummi Universe."

What was the inspiration behind your project?

"The character originated from back in our school days, we used to doodle all the time. We were huge fans of an artist called Jon Burgerman & our final year art project was actually a (primitive) version of Naru inspired by Jon Burgerman’s style of doodle art!

We started the project in 2020 as soon as the pandemic hit. We had no intention for it to turn out the way it did! We created an Instagram page called ‘’Hungrynaru’’, which we used to create happy & motivational artworks of our character Naru. At this point in time, Naru was very inspired by Sanrio. It was our way of spreading a bit of love and joy to everyone during a difficult time.

Inspired by an article David read in a magazine about Moshi Monsters and how Michael Acton Smith built his brand, we then decided we should start expanding & creating merchandise to see where it could go! We were also huge fans of Pokemon, Digimon & Yugioh growing up (and still are) So huge amounts of inspiration is taken from them; collecting Monsters & Cards just turned into the main idea behind starting our first NFT Collection.

So… in summary, our inspirations grew every step of the way: Jon Burgerman > Sanrio > Moshi Monsters > Pokemon / Digimon / Yugioh "

Tell us a little bit about your project’s journey and where you are today with it.

"Yummi’s journey has been pretty crazy! We never expected to have come so far in such a short space of time. As mentioned, we started in 2020 on instagram creating posts for fun and selling badges and notebooks from our website. David has been interested in crypto since 2017, and as soon as he saw Cardano did NFTs he knew this could be big for us. So we joined the cNFT space in April 2021, which is when we did our first sale!

Our first NFT collection was collectable NFT Toys & Trading cards. We used Google Forms to sell them and sent them all out manually, which is so funny to look back on now! It was a slow starter for us in the space, but our 10k Naru Drop in September 2021 was what made our project really blow up! We sold out in under 20 minutes, it was unbelievable. Since then, our brand has been growing rapidly. We continue to do Seasonal Naru drops, we launched Naru staking & $YUMMI Coin, we’re working on an awesome game with loads of new characters, we have a range of merchandise (inc. plushies!), we do IRL events and our whitepaper is being released soon!

It’s been a wild ride so far, but so much fun! We love what we do, and are so excited for the future of Yummi!"

What would you have done differently if you could start over?

"Lots of things really! There’s so many things we look back on and go “that wasn’t right” or “we should have done this differently”. However hindsight is 20/20. Reality is, mistakes happen. Don’t dwell on past mistakes, learn from them & move forwards."

What's the best advice for the NFT space you would give someone starting a project now?

Be kind, have fun & always be yourself. Things might start slow, but if you love what you do then don't give up!

What excites you about the future of the NFT/Crypto/Web 3 space?

The most amazing thing about cryptocurrency and more specifically Cardano is its power to free people. Cardano is building something that can provide economic stability to entire countries. Digital currency is inevitable & Cardano is leading the way, by building the most secure, scalable & sustainable cryptocurrency ever. By leveraging the power of Cardano, we can lead the way by building the best products the entire cryptocurrency space has ever seen.

What are the biggest challenges you see us having as a whole in growing the NFT space?

"As a community, we have a chance to grow this space. We can show everyone the power of Cardano, and ultimately help Cryptocurrency reach mass adoption . In order to do this we need to work together! Arguing over silly things and competitiveness between each other will never get us there.

We need to show the world that our community is kind, welcoming & just awesome in general! "

Drop some exciting news that is coming up with your project 🙂

"More Plushies!! Haha, we’re not too sure when the new plushies will be here, so can’t say too much on that.

But some more exciting news is that our Whitepaper is being released very soon, and that will reveal a lot more about the future of our project!

Overall, we aim to really harness the power of Cardano and NFTs with our future moves! We will be showcasing why Cardano and NFTs are the future of gaming as we know it, and Yummi Universe will be leading the way!"