NFT brand Doodles hires Billboard exec Julian Holguin as CEO
It’s the latest signal that the worlds of Web3 and music are converging.
Vancouver-based Doodles, the influential NFT project launched last year by Dapper Labs alumni, has added long-time music publishing executive Julian Holguin as partner and CEO.
The announcement was made Friday, May 6. Holguin joins Doodles from Billboard, where he served as president since November 2020 and in various other leadership positions with the organization between 2012 and 2015. He has previously held managing roles with MRC Studios, Dick Clark Productions, and NBC Universal.
Holguin will work closely with the Doodles founding team to scale and expand on the current NFT market into music, gaming, premium content, and consumer goods
The news comes as NFT-culture and music industry crossover projects are proliferating. For instance, Wave, a virtual entertainment company where artists perform online as avatars, announced earlier this week it's getting into NFT collectibles. And closer to home, singer Ashanti is working with Canada’s EQ Exchange on music NFTs, as reported by Vancouver Tech Journal.
Holguin has been a longtime fan of Doodles. Back in February, he proudly shared that he and his wife both own Doodles NFTs, which, at the time of writing, cost a minimum of 23 ETH (CAD $79,548) on OpenSea, an NFT marketplace.
“I couldn't be more excited to join Evan [Keast], Jordan [Castro], and Scott [Martin] on this journey,” said Holguin in a statement, acknowledging Doodles’ founders. “What they've been able to accomplish and the way they have innovated in such a short time is truly remarkable.”
He added: “I look forward to helping build Doodles into one of the world's next great brands and push blockchain and NFTs into the mainstream market.”
The Doodles NFT collection was founded by Keast, Castro, and Martin working with WestCoast NFT, an NFT development agency helmed by Steve Mitobe. The Doodles collection features 10,000 NFTs generated from hundreds of varying traits, such as differences in faces, hair, piercings, and backgrounds.
Publicly launched in October of 2021, Doodles quickly became one of the most popular and influential NFT projects produced. The company’s sales have crossed into the hundreds of millions of dollars and its community can count Justin Bieber and DJ Steve Aoki among its most prominent members.
Doodles is one of many NFT groups to launch out of Vancouver’s Web3 ecosystem, which also counts Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, Big Head Club, DiamondHandbag Club, TokenOcean, and artist Fvckrender as major players.