RTFKT cofounder Benoit Pagotto on building brands and why you’re better off playing ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ than going to conferences

In a recent interview with Fortune, Pagotto shares how RTFKT, which generated over $185 million in NFT sales in 2022, has navigated the Nike acquisition and the ongoing bear market. He also explains how his passion for gaming has helped him develop innovative brand strategies, and discusses recent collaborations with L’Oreal and others.

(This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

Can you tell us about your background and how you got into Web3 and NFTs?

I studied fine arts, and then I worked a lot in advertising and consulting for luxury clients in retail design. When I was a student, I had a job at Colette, the really cool concept store in Paris, which is one of the places where I learned the most, and that influenced a lot of how we run RTFKT today. They were taking different parts of culture and putting it together under the same roof, but really, merging high fashion with streetwear and art, design, all of that together. So I learned a lot when I was a student and working there day to day, and then I got into NFTs.

I’m a huge, huge gamer. Even though NFTs are great, I always consider them just as a medium to allow you to do things that you can normally only do in video games, which is to get people to own and trade and use digital assets. So when I discovered NFTs in 2018, at the time I was working in Esports with a company that was making something like NFTs out of Counter-Strike skins. To me, it was kind of a eureka moment.

So that’s the moment we started RTFKT, when the NFT market started to blow up. It was a perfect canvas to do our idea, which was a brand that is sitting between reality and the virtual world, and that is constantly playing around these spaces to make cool, exciting, new stuff and innovations.

How many hours per day do you play games?

It depends. Like in the past few weeks, I played a lot because the new Zelda came out and I think I did 130 hours, which is a lot.

It’s like a separate job.

Almost, but a lot of ideas I have or things I come up with, it’s because I’ve experienced them in video games. I’m always trying to think: “How can you take what this game has done, and how it can inspire you to do something cool for a brand?”

The new Zelda added even more what is called “player agency.” If you look on TikTok you see what people are doing with these new gameplay mechanics, and it’s mind-blowing. So, really, that’s what I advise all my friends these days. I’m telling them: “Stop doing what you do—you need to play Zelda.” You will learn more playing Zelda, especially if you play it with your little brother, your little sister, and you see how they are embracing this freedom and these tools that are given in the game. You will learn more doing this than coming to the conferences.

So what is the most powerful marketing tool for you for now?

To me, honestly, the most powerful marketing tool is just making stuff that is dope. It’s simple: It’s the content. You need your content to be fresh and exciting, because we’re all on our phones every day and seeing so many things from brands, from amateurs, from influencers, and it’s very hard to know what is really genuine and not. I think people react when they see something that is genuinely cool and exciting and new.

What about the recent performance of NFTs?

We’re in a super bear market. It was meant to happen because there was such a huge spike. I think it’s good in a sense that the technology and the money side are going to take a bit of a backseat. People are going to leverage NFTs more as a medium, and not just as NFTs for NFTs sake.

It’s very hard for a lot of small Web3 companies that started during the hype or raised money during the hype to now have to sustain themselves, especially because the royalties are not there anymore, so the business model has changed.

RTFKT was acquired at the end of 2021 by Nike. How have things changed for you since then?

It didn’t change too much. Now we work a lot more closely with Nike to help them on their own Web3 initiatives, with DotSwoosh, but what’s great is that we stay mainly independent. Nike really understands that our strength is the brand and that we’re not Nike, and that’s why we can do things Nike cannot do. Sometimes RTFKT and Nike do collaborations, so it’s been really good for both parties, and they have a really amazing brand.

But, again, I always go back to the people behind the brand: They are amazing super smart, very innovative people, who are working on really groundbreaking things and have big ideas. I’m super happy to get to know them and work with them.

Are you planning any additional partnerships?

We never announce in advance, but there are always things going on. We did Rimowa—very happy to have that, they’ve been amazing partners to work with. We announced that we are working with [L’Oreal owned] Shu Uemura, which is really really good makeup brand that we like, with Japanese influence.

So do you see the Asian market as more active when it comes to buying NFTs?

Right now, yes. In Asia, it’s been a long time that video games and Esports have been a big thing, and they have a collectibles culture, especially in Japan. But of course, we also have a lot of American degens—crypto people.