After Thorne Melcher lost her job as a software engineer in February, bills started piling up. Her girlfriend, Mandy Musselwhite, was able to cover a few expenses selling her artwork, but the couple quickly fell behind>How they did it
The couple began working>Looking ahead
Melcher and Musselwhite are hopeful for the future, especially after a rough few years amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
"I'm trans, and I was supposed to get surgery. Then, that got delayed over and over and over again because of the pandemic," Melcher says.
Finding a new job has been difficult as well. Melcher has found contract work in the meantime, but is looking forward to landing a full-time position sometime soon.
After the launch of Dastardly Ducks, "I have so many people that suddenly want to work with me is a Solidity coder. There are people who are interested in working with Mandy [Musselwhite] as an artist," Melcher says.
Melcher and Musselwhite hope to raise more real ducks on their farm as well.
"We only have half a dozen ducks and we've always wanted to expand beyond this," Melcher says. "We already have more eggs than we knew what to do with for personal use, and now there are people in our Discord channel that are wondering how they can pay for real eggs off of us."
Thorne Melcher and Mandy Musselwhite own a homestead in metro Atlanta, which includes a farmhouse where they've raised six ducks, two geese and other animals.Courtesy of Thorne Melcher and Mandy Musselwhite
Though any Dastardly Duck owner is welcome to use their ducks in their own content, Melcher and Musselwhite own the rights to the collection's name and style, they say. The couple hopes to continue the Dastardly Duck brand and work on new projects in the NFT space.
They'll also continue to earn a royalty on secondary sales, where volume traded is currently around $6,354 in total on OpenSea.
"We're not resting on our laurels and feeling comfortable. This is just the gateway to something bigger," Melcher says. "I want to know that we are secure. I don't want to worry about money. The big priority is making sure the bills are paid."
