Gary Vee: The Creator of VeeFriends on How it All Began and What's Coming Next
In a world in which online life is often seen as divisive, Gary Vaynerchuk makes no bones about why he does what he does: He wants to make a better world. Social media, he reminds, can just as easily be, and just as often is, a unifying force. “There's always room for positivity. I mean, comic books flourished during World War Two.” VeeFriends and the values Vaynerchuk built the company on, he says, were created to help build this better world.
While there's no doubt that Vaynerchuk is a positive thinker, he wants you to know: it's not pie-in-the-sky thinking. "This is practical positivity. Practical. This is not delusion. This is pragmatic at scale." For him, that's part of what makes VeeFriends different. "This is not la-la-la, everything’s amazing. Competitive Clown, right? He’s a monster in our world. We don’t believe in eighth-place trophies."
It's been four years since the burst of inspiration that led to VeeFriends, but talking to its creator, it's plain to see that Vaynerchuk’s enthusiasm for the company is here to stay. With a mind that moves a mile a minute, interviewing the entrepreneur takes you from favorite childhood cards, to the present state of his company, to a future decades away, all in the snap of a finger. But, to give us an idea of where VeeFriends and Gary Vaynerchuk are going next, let's take a look back at how VeeFriends came to be.
Vaynerchuk began: “In early 2021, I became incredibly infatuated with NFTs. I started collecting Crypto Punks, which I still believe are the Holy Grail NFT collectible. I got very excited about them. I decided that I wanted to build my own NFT collection.”
He wanted to make characters all his own. "I wanted stories predominantly built around positive and important human traits that I speak about, that I believe in. It felt right to attach them to animals, or other characters like robots, or aliens, or vampires."
In 2021, Vaynerchuk embarked on drawing those characters and then, converting the original works into NFT form. Hundreds of VeeFriends emerged from the initial outpouring in 2021, released as Series 1. These were joined by 15 more from Series 2. Today, the VeeFriends universe consists of more than 250 unique characters. The entrepreneur saw storytelling was a way to level up. "I wanted to go from Mickey Mouse as Gary Vee, to Walt Disney."
Vaynerchuk does not put out much content about his creative process, so it's a piece of the puzzle that is less-known to the public. "It's a very big part of my life," he said. "I drew every one of these characters. I'm writing the origin stories with my team. I approve every comic, every word."
VeeFriends President Andy Krainak got a front-row look at Gary's process back in 2021, when he collaborated on the initial creation of VeeFriends. "When it came to the NFT space, people closest to him, myself included, had never seen Gary so singularly focused on one topic. Early 2021, he spent months talking to people in the space. He said he was going to create a collection, came up with the name and away we went."
That's when the fun really started. "We came up with all kinds of access token ideas, then it was about building out Gary’s values. This massive brainstorming session, this creative explosion. Hundreds of ideas based on themes Gary has talked about, matching them with animals, or whatever character felt right. We stayed holed up in Malibu for days working through these ideas. Gary would look at this massive whiteboard, and be like boom - gratitude - okay, and have a piece of paper and write Gratitude Gorilla, then get to drawing. He drew every one. He planned, drew, and went again. It was amazing to watch, to be part of."
Vaynerchuk, long-known for his upbeat and optimistic outlook, wanted VeeFriends to be "another way to put practical positivity and optimistic practicality into the universe. I felt that Patient Panda, Accountable Ant, Gratitude Gorilla, these were new vehicles for me to reach both young and old."
When it came to building out the product in which VeeFriends and their stories would be told, there were two main components. The first, Krainak called, "the Pokemon-Sesame Street of it all." Think IP - character names, look and feel, the mission and values. The other piece was the value of the NFT’s. With the initial NFT releases, each collectible was also a ticket to three-years of VeeCon, a business conference created to bring consumers and collectors value beyond the token.
It didn't stop there. Krainak continued: "We also built IRL experiences around Gary and VeeFriends for the community to engage and build. VeeFriends access characters would give the collector, for example, a chance to meet with Gary, play ping-pong with Gary, shoot hoops with Gary. Say you have Jam Session Snail, that gets you a three-hour meeting with Gary to talk business. It helped build a community."
Vaynerchuk said, "At the time, I was having conversations around trading cards. I was very early in the re-boom. So I knew I would have collectors, entrepreneurs, parents, optimistic humans all around this. Obviously the launch was very successful. Then the hysteria surrounding all the values of the NFT’s kind of ate up too much of the oxygen. But a lot of people bought the NFT because it was also a functional collectible. I would say more than half the people who bought the original NFT bought it as a ticket to VeeCon."
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The release was a success, and VeeFriends has only expanded in the almost-half decade since the story began. "As I said in 2022, I thought 99% of NFTs would go to zero, similar to the way I look at comic books and coins and stamps and trading cards and art and sneakers and video games, you know, there's a gold rush. But I’m proud to say that VeeFriends is still one of the most significant collectibles still out there in the space."
Today, Vaynerchuk remains at the helm of the VeeFriends creative universe. "My nerdom growing up was Star Wars, the building of a whole world. I can tell you, comic book number two will be the origin story of two characters. And nobody on Earth right now, in the Veefriends world, has any indication about the relationship of these two characters. They don't even associate the two of them together. And I'm bringing them together. I thought of the origin of these two characters three years ago. And now it’s happening. That's the kind of thing that excites me."
BOOOOOOOM BANGGGGGGG WHAT !!!! THE GRAIL ! pic.twitter.com/hGwpRpo9bN
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) February 17, 2025
While many traditional collectible outfits have had to adapt to new digital and social media spaces, VeeFriends was born in them. The result is a fascinating process, of a business and community built online, growing into physical spaces, through conferences, meetups, physical collectibles such as the release of VeeFriends trading cards with ZeroCool, and forays into traditional media. Veefriends trading cards will soon be getting a full Topps Chrome release, a massive achievement for the ever-growing, ever-changing VeeFriends universe.
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More comic books are on the horizon. A cartoon series, created with Moonbug Entertainment, has found streaming success. Starting on Super Bowl Sunday, Veefriends comics have begun to appear in 72 news publications.
As VeeFriends' expansion into more traditional outlets continues, Gary Vee is bullish on The Hobby. "I think The Hobby's in a very healthy place. I think we've gotten rid of people who are just overtly speculating, which is healthy. I think more kids are getting involved, social media content will continue to build that, new collectors are going to be coming in. It’s in a nice middle. Not too hyperbolic, but it’s not dormant.”
Contrasted with the boom/bust cycle that has been experienced, Vayrnchuk sees a market, and collectors, getting more sophisticated. "Collectors are smarter in how they’re attacking things. I do think that we went through the NFT hysteria, just like the trading card hysteria during COVID. NFT’s will find their place and people will collect them again realizing only one percent may be worth collecting."
Even with more trading cards, comic books, and traditional media to come, Gary Vaynerchuk has VeeFriends perched on the eternal frontier that has long defined his thinking. Enter the Live Shopping revolution. "When it comes to live shopping," said Vayrnchuk, "I think it's one of the most important things happening in society, let alone the trading card and collectibles space."
For Vaynerchuk, the phenomenon of Live Shopping comes down to experience and engagement. "Look, I can get my catalog from Goldin, or see it on a computer, but if somebody is engaging for an hour, it’s going to get my juices going. People like to buy from live. It replicates what happens at a trade card show. It’s a more human, more dynamic interaction."
Vaynerchuk has VeeFriends positioned to be at the forefront of the Live Shopping wave. "It's now and it's next. It's a humongous part of our initiative. We did a lot of live commerce last year for VeeFriends both on Whatnot and on Fanatics Live. We'll be adding TikTok Shop. We're very, very bullish on live commerce for VeeFriends. It’s a big part of our future."
Michael Terry is a writer based in Brooklyn. He specializes in sports, culture, and collecting. His work has appeared at Topps RIPPED, ESPN, Grantland, Vice Sports, and more.