In this episode, we once again look to the Metaverse and to small brands and how you can start to plan your business models to incorporate this new digital universe.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Horizon Workrooms – https://www.meta.com/gb/work/workrooms/
Shopify – https://www.shopify.com/
Decentraland – https://decentraland.org/
The Sandbox – https://www.sandbox.game/en/
Wisher Vodka – https://wishervodka.com/

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Emma Ridderstad – https://twitter.com/AfRobson
Cathy Hackl – https://www.cathyhackl.com/
Bronwyn Williams – https://twitter.com/bronwynwilliams
Bernard Marr – https://twitter.com/BernardMarr

ARTICLES USED
Nasdaq – https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-the-metaverse-is-facilitating-new-economic-models

Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/10/12/what-is-the-business-impact-of-the-metaverse/?sh=353a0d1b26d3

We hope you enjoyed the show and it helped you to gain more clarity and give you lots of ideas as to how you can use NFTs for your business.

If you have any questions, comments and/or want to become part of our community join us on our Facebook group and/or on Discord.

Or visit us here:
Website: https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wotmworld
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBOeXPJ8z0zGdHul1JwFxQ

IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

 

Show Transcript

Cheryl00:03

Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl Laidlaw

Angela00:07

I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse with 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world. Swells

Cheryl00:21

from this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the manifest is going to impact your brand.

Your business and even your personal life.

Angela00:30

Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe.

Cheryl00:39

Welcome to Women of the Meta. First, in our last episode, we talked about how tokens can help small brands. And in this episode, we are going to tackle how the Metaverse will change business models. As always, our focus is on small brands and how you can start now, be ahead of the crowd and plan for your business to enter into this digital universe.

Entering the metaphor as a small brand will require. A strategy that takes advantage on all it has to offer. All of our previous episodes and any research you do yourself will prove to you that you have to extend your thinking and creativity to incorporate these order list opportunities into your business models.

We have expressed this morning before, and that is why we wanted to get into a little bit more detail in a separate episode. Moving your business into the metaverse is not just a case of doing what you do now, replicating your current business model in the Metaverse immediately cuts off the limitless opportunities that a virtual world, one way you define the rules exists.

Angela01:49

Don’t listen to the nays says there are so many of them that the metaverse will fail, that it will never take. In 2020, the Metaverse globally was valued at over 27 billion, and that value is expected to reach over 800 billion by 2030. That is not an insignificant amount. The same people who are doubters were probably the same people who said that social media will never be a useful tool for your business.

Cheryl and I came across a few of those, didn’t we? Oh, just a few back in the. Whilst there is still an element of doubt as to what the metaverse is, and there seems to be this constant raise to claim top spot, maybe in a few years time it will no longer be called the Metaverse. It may have a new name and it may be finally just incorporated into the whole web three.

But all of the components of this evolving technology exist now. Artificial intelligence, 3D model. Virtual reality, augmented reality, and even teleportation are being used today. However, however you look at it, whatever you want to call it, you can’t ignore that. At some point for your business to remain relevant and viable, you will need to move into this digital world.

So Gerald, how do you create a business model for the metaverse?

Cheryl03:17

Well, Emma Riad, CEO of Warp in Media, when asked what the Metaverse means to her in October, 2022, a Forks Magazine article said she imagines the metaverse as everything we can do online today through our smartphones and our computers, but being able to do it in an immersive 3D via virtual and augmented reality.

I mean, that’s a really good definition, I

Angela03:45

think. Yeah, it is actually, isn’t it? I liked

Cheryl03:48

1. Yeah, I really like that because you can move in between worlds. It really encompasses more of your senses. It creates a much deeper experience than perhaps an app or a phone. By now, most of us have probably had a 3D experience.

Maybe in a cinema, you feel like you’re actually part of the film. You might have seen videos where people were wearing VR headsets and walking along a high beam above a city, and they respond as if they’re going to fall, and Andrew and I both experience it when we do our news from Horizon and Workrooms.

We’ve spoken many times that, for example, when we’re in our room by the beach, we immediately feel calmed karma just by listening to the sea and lapping up those waves. It’s,

Angela04:31

it’s so real. It’s great

Cheryl04:34

one. I love having a little meeting

Angela04:36

in there. I do too. But also there’s those experiences where, um, there’s one I did where I was on a ship and you can fill the ship that you are going up and down with the ship and your stomach kind of.

Like goes, Did you feel sick though, Angela? I didn’t feel sick in that one, but there was one with a rollercoaster where, Yeah, I started it and I was like, I can’t do this. I just, Yeah, I did that one. I can’t do it. . So it, so the experience is, so, it really, like it does reach your senses, doesn’t it? It really

Cheryl05:09

does.

Yeah. It, I mean, I’m there. Yeah, me too. Take the headset off

Angela05:13

on the rollercoaster. I was like, No, can’t do this one. . I like watching films on a big screen, but I don’t like going to the cinema because people just get on my nerves in a cinema. But I can sit on my sofa with a comfy fleece, the noisy snacks I want, and have the same cinema experie.

With a VR headset on. I love the idea of this cuz I just, some films I wanna see, but I just, I can’t stand going to the cinema with other people. It drives me nuts.

Cheryl05:42

I love the, uh, films they have on meta at the moment where you can go to, um, you can see the safari. You can go on Safari, Yes. With the lions.

Angela05:54

Yes. I did one Where you go, um, diving with, um, Shark. I see. It’s just amazing. I know, but, But imagine being able to see a new release like this, you know, a new film release that you’d really wanna go to the cinema and watch it. But either it’s just a hassle or like me, you’re miserable and don’t wanna sit next to other people.

Cheryl06:18

Andrew doesn’t like people, if you haven’t

Angela06:20

guessed it already. . Annoying people. Annoying people. I like other people’s, but annoying people.

Cheryl06:27

Maybe you like live music, but the thought of dragging yourself to a concert or sitting in a muddy field at Glastonbury is no longer your cup of tea. That’s me, by the way.

And you have me, or even or even you want to go to a concert on the other side of the world, but it’s not possible. If you have to get up and run a business the next day, you can attend these live events. Now there’s

Angela06:47

limitations. I remember I used to work for a company that was by Paddington Station. So used to see them all going and coming back from Glass R Oh, the state.

They came back. Just the thought of that it like, just like head to toe in mud. Just you know, that’s the young person’s game. Give me

Cheryl07:08

a comfy seat and

Angela07:09

a head. Oh yes. I remember also going to see Duran Duran that, this is really funny cuz it just shows what happens when you get a bit. because most concerts you go to just stand up, wouldn’t you?

You just would stand up as soon as the music comes. Because, Yeah, but , because this was an sort of an older audience of Duran Duran fans, every time there was a song, people would stand up. But in between songs or songs that people didn’t know, people would sit down. It was just such a different experience because now people just wanna stay at home.

They can do it, they can watch it from home. Even Kathy Hackle, we talked about her before, um, she was talking about the other day with. Having this experience in the Metaverse, because she was saying to us, going to a concert would be to physically leave our houses, attend a concert, and we would say, Yes, I saw so and so in concert.

But Kathy Hackle, I can’t remember whether it was Justin Beba or Ariana Grande, went to the concert in the Metaverse using his VR headset, but he still would say he went to that concert. So for younger people, that experience of attending

Cheryl08:24

something, being there, attending his first concert, Yeah,

Angela08:27

attending his first concert, even though it’s virtual reality to them is real.

It’s an experience. I attended that concert, so you people might not see it this way, but those of us that are, you know, this generation.

Cheryl08:42

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not gonna replace live event. No. It’s just another way of attending an event if you live across the other side of the world or you can’t get off of your sofa for whatever reason.

Angela08:51

Yeah. Or do anything. Like you say, it makes it borderless, it makes it accessible to all, doesn’t it? Yeah. But you can go further than that. How far can you open your mind? The best way to start is to imagine what you can do in the metaverse that you can’t do outside of it, like we’ve just talked about.

This is such a good exercise to start with. What do you want to do that you can’t do with your current business? What limitations do you have that could be taken away by creating it in a digital? For example, what if you were a handbag designer and you have ideas that will not work? Maybe because it will make the bag too heavy or it wouldn’t fit right on the body, or you can’t mold the leather in a certain shape.

All of these things can be done in the metaverse, the shape, the size, the color, the texture can all be created. Imagine if we didn’t have to carry the handbag, it could just fly alongside of.

Cheryl09:54

Have you seen the new robot, Angela? No. The one that walks behind you? No. . So it’s like a box robot and it carries all of your goods.

So all the heavy things. I was thinking about this for if you are a photographer, cuz they’ve got the, they have so much equipment to carry, don’t they? Yeah, that’s true. You just pop it into this robot box and it follows you down the road.

Angela10:17

, You know, I’m thinking it just gives me an excuse to carry more things.

I see all these inflows with their little mini bags and I think, What would that do? I couldn’t put anything in a mini bag. I have to have everything, cuz if the world’s gonna end, I need everything just in case.

Cheryl10:31

Absolutely. The just in case Robot box? Yes. It’s about eight. I’ve actually, When did I see it? I saw it in TikTok, of course, two days ago.

Googled it. It’s 1,850. There

Angela10:44

you go. I know someone who owns a shop in a small town, and she always creates a beautiful Christmas shopping experience. She’s really good at buying the right products, and the whole top floor of her shop is turned into a Christmas wonderland. Imagine if she created this virtual Christmas shopping experience where you could have berries flying around, showing you the products, or, Oh,

Cheryl11:08

I love that idea.

So amazing Imagin.

Angela11:11

You’ve got like Tin Bell, just like splitting about showing you things. Yeah. Or elf serving you, or snow falling from the ceiling. The Christmas decorations could explode into glitter that in a virtual world does not need to be cleaned up, or the virtual decorations could turn into virtual presence.

Santa’s Grotto becomes this incredibly magical experience as if your children are at the north. What if you build cars? Again, there are so many limits in the physical world. These will disappear in the digital one. Cars that could travel at the speed you desire. Again, any shape, color design, we cannot express enough.

I think we have must have talked about this in every single episode. We mentioned the metaverse. Your ideas cannot have limits, and this is a good place to start. So Bromwyn

Cheryl12:05

Williams, chief commercial officer of Meno, wrote in a Na Dak article of June, 2022. The basics of any economy will remain supply and demand and the power of scarcity.

Real value remains connected to real scarcity and real scarcity in the metaphor comes from human attention. Broman goes on to talk about the fact that when you start to think about evolving your business model, you need to think about monetary value and intrinsic value. The intrinsic value is the fun, what you can’t experience in real life.

Flying fairies showing you around a Christmas shop, walking the streets of parish Paris, looking through the windows of restaurants so you can decide where you were going to eat before you even got on the. This is why gamification has all is is so important in Webre. And we talk about that in episode nine.

It’s

Angela13:05

such about the experience, this isn’t it, you know, going into the metaverse and how you’re gonna evolve your business model. The experience just needs to be, and I think you see that with brands now where you are. You’re getting things like the packaging becomes so important and the experience of receiving it that now then needs to move into the digital world, you know?

Yeah. If you’re not

Cheryl13:32

standing out, I think again, a couple episodes back, we spoke about the guy that, um, I forget his name, Roy, something. And how amazing his, his insights were into marketing. When it comes down to Yes. Rory’s

Angela13:47

Hotels, Is it Rory Sutherland? Is that the one? That’s the one, yeah. He’s amazing.

He’s incredible. So also, um, coming from the same Forbes magazine article where we talked about Emma, um, and the actual article was written by Brenda Mo, we put a link in the show note cuz it is actually a really good article. One whiskey company collaborated with a hotel to create a new cocktail, Then created an immersive experience that transports the consumer to Scotland to fly over.

The Highlands, lets them get an inside look into how whiskey is made and gives them a virtual tour of a distillery. After the virtual tour, you take your virtual reality glasses off and your whiskey cocktail is sitting in front of. I love that so much cuz it’s such a simple

Cheryl14:38

That’s a great idea. Yeah. And it’s, again, they’re probably the first people to do that, so they’ll be spoken about.

Everyone’s gonna come and experience it. Yeah. I, I’m not even into whiskey that’s going,

Angela14:50

but I’d go and have the, Yeah, I would go and do it. These kinds of immersive brand storytelling experiences are a great way for companies to connect with customers in a really innovative.

Cheryl15:03

It is not about going all in straight away for the future.

You need to think big with no limits. Don’t allow others to put borders on your thinking for the long term plan. No, and what I’ve seen recently on websites in the web free space is roadmaps. So even if you are not there yet, you can still put a strategy in place for your future. Ideas on the Metaverse, all your 3D experience.

So I think that’s a really nice, Again, once you, once you start looking at web three websites, you’ll see that there’s always a roadmap

Angela15:42

tab. I think this is really important because it shows to accompany that you are thinking about it, even if you’re not 100% sure about how you’re gonna do it. The fact that you.

Talking about these types of things means that you are doing your research and your, you understand what’s coming,

Cheryl16:03

especially if you wanna get investment. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But today you could do your research and start with small steps. What could you do now? Could you incorporate 3D modeling if you have a Shopify account?

That is certainly. Could you purchase land in the sandbox or the decent land? Could you build a world in meta? Could you even start to hold meetings in horizon workrooms, or could you do team training via vr? Once you start these steps, you will then test research, test research, and then test research once

Angela16:40

again.

Yeah, I think it’s, I think that’s the way to start, isn’t it? Is you already, you can do some of these small steps. Just holding meetings in Horizon. We love it. I love it there. Well, we took

Cheryl16:54

a whim when we first started our journey into the Metaverse and web three, Angela and I said, Well, we better purchase a pair VR headsets.

And off we went. We had no idea what we were

Angela17:04

doing. No, we really didn’t. No idea what to expect. And it just, it does open your world and it does make you think what you can achieve. I think that really helps, even if you don’t wanna. You self pair, if you’ve got kids that have got them. Then just to have a play around just so you can understand the experience, how Yeah, and how it makes you feel.

As we have said, this whole digital universe is about experience. How can you start today to create a more immersive experience for your customer? We haven’t mentioned them in a long time, but wish of vodka. Built a distillery in decent land and hosted parties before a physical bottle of vodka was sold.

In all of our episodes, we have given examples of highly creative and innovative businesses. If you haven’t already, we really recommend you go back and listen to our other episodes and take note of these brands and look at their business models and how they are moving forward into the metaverse.

Cheryl18:10

We hope you enjoyed this episode and it helped you start to think big about your future plans.

We would love to hear your ideas. Join us next week as we continue our journey into the Metaverse. Bye for now.

Angela18:22

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse.

Cheryl18:31

You can find all information, links and people we talked about in the show notes on our website.

Angela18:37

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please comment and subscribe.

Cheryl18:41

Join us again in the next episode as we continue this exciting metaverse journey.