On episode 30 of the Zero Rights Reserved podcast, hosts Toady Hawk and Joshua Fisher from The Noun Square sit down with David Horvath, a legend in the Lifestyle Character Brand world and creator of such cultural heavyweights as Uglydoll and Bossy Bear.

In this conversation, we dig into David’s past and his development from a curious child into a creative force. We hear his story about founding Uglydoll with his now-wife and working partner Sun-Min Kim, and building that property into a globally successful character brand.

We also chat about David’s 2022 Nouns proposal to put Nouns Sofubi and Plush into high end Japanese stores, and how they came back asking for more. Lastly, David talks about his new proposal to Nouns to produce more Nounish Plushes and place them in stores where they can be a trigger for new people to fall down the Nounish rabbit hole. 

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Plush down the rabbit hole

00:50 - ZEORPOD Intro

01:33 - First time face to face

02:30 - The David Horvath origin story: Childhood

03:15 - Favorite toys

05:31 - Favorite Collectibles now

06:31 - “Releasing a plushy” vs Plush culture in Japan

07:50 - The power of plush

09:07 - “Caught in the pursuit of awareness”

09:39 - Gary Lee is the Mr. Rogers of this generation

10:50 - “Brands cannot live on nostalgia alone.”

11:11 - Ugly Doll’s genesis

14:14 - Collaboration with Sun-Min

16:28 - “The Eames Chair of Plush”

21:00 - Taking UglyDoll to scale

23:00 - Pounding the pavement

24:36 - How was Bossy Bear similar, different?

27:31 - Misconceptions about breaking into Japan

28:00- In Japan, Lifestyle Character Brands are for everyone

29:00 - Getting people to care vs just knowing about you

30:45 - The BossyBear story

33:51 - Your tribe has to grow organically

34:52 - BossyBear compared to UglyDoll creative experiences

37:00 - 5 o’ clock somewhere
37:34 - David’s original Nouns proposal

39:25 - What is a Sofubi?

41:54 - How were the first run of Nouns plush received?

45:00 - What to expect if the current proposal passes?

46:16 - Taking CC0 ideals to shelf space

48:00 - Prop is designed to be self sufficient in the long run

50:00- Nouns at Toy and Gift Shows

51:05 - How does he answer people who ask “What is Nouns?”

54:00 - “Maybe I shouldn’t explain too much.”

57:00- Talking Snoopy

1:00:00 - “Wouldn’t it be treat if they fell down the rabbit hole?”

1:04:20 - David as a nouns OG

10:06:00 - “We know when we’re being sold.”

1:07:00 - Where to find out more

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Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and Santhosh. Hosted by Toady Hawk and Joshua Fisher. Music by Toady Hawk x Suno AI.

Zero Rights Reserved, please remix and reuse our content in any way you like!

Produced by The Noun Square onchain media collective. Follow @ thenounsquare on Twitter for daily content about Nouns, NFTs, Ethereum and more or visit https://tns.wtf to learn more.