Founding Story

The concept for OnBoard was conceived when Cardano Salad began researching, reviewing, and promoting up and coming artists in the Cardano NFT space. Over time, Salad started to see that there was a theme emerging in the space… Projects with poor art but good social media marketing would sell out. Projects with great art, but with creators that lack adequate technical knowledge or Web3 experience would struggle. For a sector that is meant to be focused on art and artists, this didn't make sense.

Whilst pondering ways to bridge the NFT to real-life art gap, Salad took a day trip to Oxford, UK with his girlfriend. It was on this day trip that he first met OnBoard Co-Founder and Lead Artist, Squashua. Squashua was selling brightly coloured, 'NFT'esque', paintings on one of Oxford's busiest streets. At that moment in time, Squashua represented everything that Salad was trying to combat:-

One of Oxford's most talented artists was selling AMAZING hand drawn pieces on the street for £20 each, whilst artists with far less skill and talent were making hundreds of times that figure in the NFT space. It just didn't add up.

Salad approached Squashua, exchanged contact details, and within 7 days had shared the concept for OnBoard with him. It will come as no surprise to you that one of the UK's most talented and underrated artists was keen to support a project that empowers real life artists in the way that OnBoard does. Then the hard work began…

Having found the perfect artist to head up the project, Salad then needed to build a team capable of implementing the ambitious plans he had for OnBoard. A team capable of understanding OnBoard, understanding real life artists, and a team capable of really bridging that NFT to real-life art gap. There was only one person Salad had in mind… CNFT Connoisseur (Yannick).

Yannick and Salad had become good friends in the 6 months prior to conceiving OnBoard, through CNFT Twitter and their shared loved of several Cardano NFT projects. With the exception of Cardano Man, Reggie Clay, Nemo and a few other CNFT legends, Yannick was one of the only people that Salad believed would truly understand the magnitude of the task at hand. He also spent hours of his free time researching, reviewing, and promoting up and coming artists so it was always going to be a natural fit. It's for this reason that Yannick is an OnBoard Co-Founder, and Community Lead. Yannick's love for real-life art was an unknown bonus at the time Salad approached him, but it has proven to be invaluable in recent months as the team, the project and the collection has been brought to life.