For Brands and Corporations with IP

Not every brand or corporation has the cultural pull to make it in the Metaverse without creating a launchpad of sorts. You have to be honest with yourself. Is your brand or company at the caliber of Disney or LVMH? More often than not, the answer to that question is no. This means you cannot create in the dark, drop an NFT or Metaverse environment, and expect everyone to notice. There's too much happening in the Metaverse to expect that you will be the center of attention, even if for a moment.

But you have an unfair advantage that Disney and LVMH don't have. You have a community of customers, followers, and partners that most likely don't know the first thing about the Metaverse. Therefore, you can be the vector through which they learn about this stuff. You've already shown that you're a self-learner by picking up this book. Share what you're learning with your existing community. You have the power to connect with those people in a way that a Disney character, CryptoPunk, or a Decentraland cannot and has not been able to. Your existing community is your launchpad into the Metaverse. These will be your first users. But you have to be able to share your journey with them and get them to buy into what you're building.

Leaning into educating your own community has to be your superpower here. Approach this from a place of honesty. Tell them what clicked in your head that made the Metaverse make sense to you. Share what worries you still. You've already built trust among your customers, followers, and partners. You don't want to lose that trust by being as polarizing and definite as we are in this book. However, starting from an area of honest education won't tarnish your reputation.

Everyone needs to learn the basics of blockchain, digital wallets, and how to manage one's own digital assets at some point. The world cannot rely only on futuristic techie voices like us. After all, we usually sound like beings from another planet. But you know what will drive the point home to your community. You know the analogies and mental models that will help this stuff make sense because you know their pain points better than we do. Your goal should be to help share that aha moment with your community because if you are the vector at which they come to understand this stuff, then they'll buy into whatever you end up building.

After you've spent some time building that knowledge base amongst your community, then you can focus on constructing your Metaverse plans. At this point, begin thinking about what you want to uniquely offer the world. What is the value that your brand or company is known for? Why do people respect your product or service? What benefit do you provide your users? Lean into answering these questions first, as this will determine which valuable IP of yours will translate to the Metaverse.

The Sears Towers in Chicago is iconic. Even though the name was officially changed to the Willis Tower in 2009, Chicagoans (and the entire world, for that matter) still refer to it as the Sears Tower. If we were leading Metaverse strategy for Sears, guess what we're going to build in The Sandbox or Decentraland?

Land in the Metaverse is new and likely the cheapest it will ever be. A great first place to start as a brand or corporation is simply attaching your company to a plot of land in the Metaverse and building around that. We're going to experience the Metaverse around locations. In the Metaverse's infinite vastness, we're going to memorize these maps by points of interest. Users will tell their friends, “Hey, meet me at Kohl's Plaza.” Or, “Yo, I'm hanging out at the Land O' Lakes Lounge, come through.” You can start small by building a social space like Benny Or did with The Meeting Place.

And it doesn't just have to be in The Sandbox or Decentraland if you're priced out of that land. Go back and reread Chapter 6, “Enter the Metaverse.” There are so many Metaverse worlds to build in, whether it's a sandbox Metaverse or a gaming Metaverse. And because many of these Metaverses exist on the blockchain, you have that transparency to see what the traffic and user bases are like and can let data power your decisions.

This holds true especially if your company has traditionally existed in one dimension or has not really seen itself as a tech-forward company. Now is the best time to reinvent oneself in the digital dimension. Now is the time to reimagine your brand's value in a new format. And these time investments in the Metaverse today are going to pay great compounding returns.

For example, look at a company like BlackBerry, which everyone largely recognizes as a failed smartphone company that was put to bed by Apple. But a lot of people don't know that when it comes to automotive operating systems, it's BlackBerry versus Tesla. It's not widely talked about that BlackBerry's QNX operating system is the preferred choice for some of the largest automakers today including BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volkswagen. They're literally impacting hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis. Although BlackBerry lost the battle over smartphones, it quietly reinvented itself and found a new battle to fight.

So even if you feel that your brand or company has missed out on the Web2 era, the social Internet, or the TikTok movement, you're not counted out from realizing success in the Web3 era.

We'd recommend that you pick up a copy of The NFT Handbook (Wiley 2021) and start familiarizing yourself with NFTs and digital assets. Gather your IP and define your unique advantages. Figure out what pieces you're missing on the tech side (or the design side) and start to build in public.

Above all, don't forget about the customers, followers, and partners who already rock with you and help bring them up to speed. They are your ultimate launch pad to entering the Metaverse with style and grace.

For Entertainers

If you are an entertainer or are associated with the entertainment business, then you're already in a great position to carve out your space in the Metaverse. You might have a talent or domain expertise that you can share in the Metaverse. You probably have some important IP or content that can be re-created in the Metaverse.

If we were in your position, then we'd start in the area of digital twins, which you will recall from Chapter 5, “The Building Blocks of the Metaverse.” Your digital twin can be an ever-present reflection of you or even a spokesperson for your brand. Your digital twin can be a virtual recreation of your best stand-up routine, performance, or DJ set. What this ultimately looks like is Travis Scott's Astronomical event in Fortnite. That was a choreographed performance where every single detail was programmed to work as they wished, and it led to Travis Scott celebrating his third No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated May 9, 2020).

We're in an era where the entertainment business is hungry for Metaverse case studies to reverse engineer and learn from. Frankly, most people are scared to share their ideas because they think everyone is going to steal their IP and ideas. But honestly, if Metaverse ideas were easily stolen, then we'd be much further along than we already are. Stealing the idea is easy. Actually executing a Metaverse installation is very difficult. A lot of people have rushed into NFTs and the Metaverse without taking the time to make it great. This is not a race. We look at the mad dash among celebrities to mint NFTs back in the summer of 2021. Many of those who rushed into it, just trying to “NFT their likeness” in any way, are no longer around. They are washed up and not trusted (by digital collectors) anymore because they clearly were after the hype and the money. So take your time and be thoughtful.

Most likely, the hardest part for you will be translating your ideas into the technical requirements of the Metaverse. So first continue to educate yourself on the concepts discussed in this book and The NFT Handbook. Then start to sketch out your ideas. It can be as simple as “I want to do X. I think I'm missing this piece. And I may need help from that type of person.” Then don't be afraid to have conversations to find the people that can help you build your vision.

If you're still stuck and need help, you know that DJ SKEE (one of the authors of this book) has been building Metaverse installations for several years. Notably, you might have heard that he and his company DASH helped Paris Hilton create her digital twin in the Metaverse by building Paris World in Roblox. Feel free to reach out to his team at https://dxsh.mv.

For Metaverse Interest Geeks

For all of you Metaverse Interest Geeks, it's never been a better time to build the “Metaverse for X.” What communities are you part of? What interests do you have that don't yet exist in the Metaverse?

We're going to reach a point in time where every niche culture, every interest, and every single sub-Reddit group has a digital equivalent in the Metaverse. You can be the agent who sparks the Metaverse movement of your interest. We look at an NFT-based project called Club CPG that essentially took their love of consumer packaged goods and built an exclusive mentorship community around that interest. Their mission has grown and even caught the attention of Mark Cuban, who is now one of the mentors in that community.

The history of the Internet is one that is flush with stories of niche communities doing great things. 50 Shades of Grey was originally written in periodic installments on various Twilight fan-fiction websites. The popular workplace chat app Slack was actually spun out of a failed MMO game called Glitch.

If you're an Interest Geek, be the coordinator who starts putting the wheels in motion for a Metaverse that fits your shared interest. You don't have to tackle this all by yourself. There are plenty of Metaverse Interest Geeks who will build and market alongside you. If you're worried about it growing bigger than you and losing a place in the space, then learn a unique and advantageous skill like Unity or Blender. Make yourself indispensable.

There's going to be a massive trend around the idea of “the Metaverse for X.” By already showing up and beginning the learning process, you're well-positioned to be one of the Metaverse Interest Geeks who will build something great.