space is there to have some
zone good morning for those that are good afternoon for those that are not as well
good evening hope you're all doing super super well please retweet repost
reshare the space we are going to kick this off but before we do I do want to
introduce and see how the fellow panelists were set up with fidgetl fidgetl
good afternoon or good morning for you actually strong PST morning brother how
you doing good and you a little sick but I'm good how'd you get sick I just flew
back from Asia and I ate too much of the food how was it was it fun at least
phenomenal back to the ground and I haven't been out of space in a while so
yeah awesome stuff Broxton over to you how was your day been this far how's your
week currently been there is an echo but we do hear you that's because I'm on the
main account let me just speak
I'm good Andrew how are you I'm doing well perfect yeah that's a ton better how's
your day been thus far pretty good lots of meetings man lots of stuff happening
with Metropolis awesome stuff happy to get into it I do want to go to the
elixir team and then we can get to Rania right after
hey guys how you doing hi all good or good good to be here with such a great
panel of speakers so happy to join and provide any any feedback for this sort
of useful useful topic we appreciate you jumping in as well thanks for being here
once again please share please repost the space Rania how are you Rania
Rania yeah it's Rania Rania perfect sorry about that no worries great to be
here very excited to have our guests in a very intense day lots happening at
Metropolis we just had a fantastic announcement you can check our tweet but
yeah busy times and a lot of great energy thanks Rania for those people in
the industry who who can't read what was the the great tweet you guys just post
it sorry we just Lord we're launching on a launchpad we paid for our private round
for upcoming token launch yeah well yeah the industry sometimes a little bit
short on readers but it hopefully gets the place where we're not okay so I will
kick us off fidgetl I do want to start with you you've obviously built a lot of
things in your career and yes you're sick but I believe you have a great
answer for this when you think of the title fidgetl building with purpose what
are the two things the two I guess tangible or intangible things that you
do start with when building something from scratch so from zero to one good
question actually usually I'm trying to solve a problem and I guess the second
part differ if we're breaking it down to pieces would be to confirm that's a
problem that's not just for me that also applies to other people otherwise
it's a lot of fixing catching up do you do you think that the person using the
product when you are building this thing has to feel it see it and and
emotionally feel the way you do about it or they don't have to I that's a good
question it depends on the industry right but I'll use bars and restaurants as
the best analogy and I would say that it it's something that you don't know
that you're missing until you have it and you can't really define it once you
do that's interesting that's interesting take I appreciate that
elixir over to you when you guys obviously are building your product from
zero to one what was the thing what was the why what was the reason you guys
started doing what you did and how do you persist and have you keep on keeping
on in terms of having that kind of fire in your gut to keep going with this
thing despite all of the things that a market or a consumer base may throw your
way so I think that's that's a that's a good question because it's just
relating also what normally you try to build based on identifying a problem or
an it so I think everything with elixir games basically all started in trying to
integrate you know different different work three games in a safe and easy to
use sort of experience so that's how we started with the launcher and that's
basically how attracted all the initial investment to that allow us to build but
it's also the kind of thing that once you get into and you start feeling seen
the user experience you start knowing more also about you know web 3 then
you you realize that that is not enough I mean it's not just and it's not
just simply to integrate you know a couple of games and that's it web 3 comes
with a lot of challenges and hurdles and you know experiences and problems that we
need to sort of facilitate in order to sort of bring the next wave of adoption
the next wave of gamers so the thing is yeah you start maybe with a need for us
it was maybe to create the the equivalent of the steam of work 3 the
launcher but at the end of the day you sort of keep yourself humble and then
you sort of keep the focus that you have to build the safest and the
easiest and ultimately fun user experience for a game meeting web 3 and
that's what keeps us motivated to sort of bring all these new developments that
we're planning with the launchpad ecosystem and all the whole experience
integrated at once that's our motto basically going back to your
question to your question great response Rania if I put your name again I'm
sorry it might be an all-day thing I hope it's not not not not too good with
this I'll be honest with you I appreciate that do you guys so obviously
you guys are metropolis do you guys think about the why you're doing it or
the how you're gonna do it more often and then does one empower the other we
always think about the why especially because we are building an ecosystem and
you know we've seen in the space when we talk about metaverses that you know a
lot of metaverses are just these empty worlds right now so the why and and how
how often like is it even makes sense is it's always something that we as a team
have to kind of look at you know for us it's really about creating worlds that
people want to explore from the ground up that are that have meaning that have
interesting people that inhabit them that there's a reason for someone to sort
of go back to metropolis world so you know so they can engage people can make
money people can show and share they can game so it's we repeatedly ask it and
sometimes we come up with ideas and we have to shoot them down because it
doesn't make sense the why isn't strong enough to sort of proceed with it with
a build that's a good take and what was your team's initial why our initial why
was we were looking at the space and we felt that you know a lot of projects
they were just sort of projects I guess they weren't sort of self-sustaining world
especially in web 3 and kind of with NFTs so for us we thought well why
don't we take NFTs and make them the building blocks to something that's
really grand like a big vision that a world again because that's something you
know we've caught we come from that world-building experience and whether it's
films movies or interactive immersive experiences so for us it was let's take
everything we've learned in terms of making amazing worlds and bring it to web
3 that is a great ethos and do you think that the ethos changes changes or
it's something that'll always kind of be structured the way it is like obviously
companies kind of operate in stage and life cycles as we know do you think that
it's going to change or do you think the thing is always going to be the thing
and it's something we can always kind of strive for I think you know first values
are will always sort of persist whether the markets up whether it's down so our
ethos is always build amazing products that are easy to use that again have
meaning they're not just superficial and I think that will always sort of be our
main ethos because that for me transcends any field or space it applies to
anything that you're building really very good response I appreciate that
our pH Hassan what's going on yo yo yo what's going on legends how you doing
feeling blessed man feeling blessed very happy and glad to be on here with you
legends I said this last time we'll say it again I don't think you've ever had a
bad day in your life every time I've talked to you whether it's it's on
it's in the back channels or it's like front channels guys he really is exact
same way across all channels I've never seen him had a bad day our pH can you
confirm don't take me I'm not gonna I'm a firm believer that you know everything
that happens to you in life is just how you perceive it you know and it's been
going it's been going well with that mindset so trying to keep it going yeah
it's definitely the alpha I got one more question for you our pH it's the top of
conversation building with purpose when you guys start up study stacks which is
your web 3 side of the web 2 side even taking us back to the web 2 web 2
side of this right what was your initial Y factor and then how did the
how follow the Y to make sure that the Y could get waited or can get done yeah
absolutely really good question you know I mean from a very young age I was
always very entrepreneurial you know I wanted to create my own freedom create
my own life they don't want you know like I took a you know index before I
forget the name of it it's a it's a it's a good index like a personality
test and you know on my on my conformity I'm very low which is typically you know
something that you see across many entrepreneurs and so you know that was
always a driving factor for me you know of course want to build cool things and
make money as well right like we can't sugarcoat the fact that you know we're
all here to create wealth not only for other people but for ourselves and
ideally in a way that we can help other people create wealth and we create
wealth so that you know it's just this giant circle of you know goodness of
money being made of impact being had and those were always kind of the driving
forces ever since I got into entrepreneurship about a decade ago but
you know specifically with steady stack right you know we had been building
social media marketing and online e-commerce businesses for nearly six
years and you know it got to a point in time where you know we were making
good money but I knew that there was gonna be something bigger than that you
know I I wanted to be able to interact with other people really saw the the
opportunity but also an affinity to grow you know an army grow community you know
in web 3 sometimes we call them cults right but you know always had a desire
to create a like-minded network of people who want to be on that same journey
and that's why we call our people stackers because we want to create a
community and a network of high-level people who just want to grow they want to
build they want to become better they want to improve 1% every day because if
you surround yourself with those people ultimately you're gonna be moving in a
very good trajectory and so you know that's that's where you know the
alignment happened obviously want to make a lot of money wanted to build you
know after the whole social media marketing and e-commerce side of
things wanted to build real tech real software something that could outlive me
something that could build a legacy and so just aligning all of those pillars
together and steady stack was born out of that as the baby that's a great
response I'm definitely the waterfall effect it's definitely taking place here
I think it takes place with your entire team it's on your entire team is always
very happy very joyful very grateful which is great and I think your community
probably resides with that and to an extent takes takes form takes approach of
the way that leadership is I mean the same thing can be said for companies if
the CEO is as grumpy complaining all the time you can't imagine that his you
know the upper management is gonna be so happy all the time either so but yeah
great stuff great point digital over to you obviously building with purpose is
important the entire company internally needs to have a kind of a
mind map of where they're gonna go why they're gonna go there but I also
think it's more important to kind of rub off the purpose on people who
purchase get involved admire the product and can you tell us how to get
this done so like people will usually purchase products from people that they
know believe in the thing like if you're if your executive team doesn't believe
in the product you're gonna go to zero I don't care who you are you're gonna go
to zero and the best thing you can do is actually push how you feel about your
product and your and your thing truthfully onto other people and I
think that comes with you know building with a purpose now people
understand your purpose and it rubs off on them which is why I'm bullish on
rph just cuz I know I'm more visual what's how do you get that done good
questions this morning very pointed I found that if I'm not passionate when I'm
building it doesn't get built and doesn't get built right anyhow and I've
always taken approach of having a vested perspective to building so it's not
that you don't want to pay people a front but if they're not willing to get
embedded if they're not passionate about the project then they're always gonna be
salesman and salesman in my opinion don't work long term I've always been
called a salesman but I don't consider myself a salesman because I just am
passionate about the stuff that I love and it kind of comes out that way and I
think if you can capture that then people come along for the ride that I
don't think it's something you have to necessarily work on it probably is
something that happens over time naturally but again if you have a team
aligned with vision that usually drives a product and the purpose for it you
mentioned a good thing the salesman thing and I was telling my buddy this
this morning I'm like you're I'm like you're not supposed to sound like a
salesperson because the moment you do and the moment people find out you're
selling something to them they're out like they're gone he's about three
seconds to happen like start to finish they figure it out they're gone but
you know how do people avoid doing this and how can like if you had to
like put this on a whiteboard and say this person that is acting a salesperson
does this and this how could you identify it and not let people like do
this like some people I think naturally do this because they're not really great
at communication so they naturally kind of do this how do you identify and then
how do you get away from this I think it's actually an interesting kind of
double-sided conundrum which is when you're when you don't want to be a
salesman and you don't like pushing your product you often especially in
attention economies like this you don't push your product hard enough and I found
that to be incredibly prevalent in the web 3 space I've launched a number of
products and I haven't gotten necessarily the response that I've expected
and most of the time it's because the people that I'm expecting to support it
the response is I didn't even know you were doing it so I think it comes down
to trusting your passion and remaining passion about the products and the
problems that you're solving and actually not being afraid of coming
across as a salesman because if you are then you don't believe in your product so
I think that's kind of like a negative approach in a positive way to the
question do you think it's do you think it's tone do you think it's depth did you
think it's just being authentic like what do you think it is everyone the internet
trying to sell you something this is just the way it is I'm not if you don't
think that's true you're probably sleeping you're probably a sleepy consumer
you don't think that's true I'm just seeing the obvious here and we all know
what to be true but you know how do you like yeah how do you you know like get
away from that like it's authenticity is it like what is it I can actually
answer that question in a in a form of a question so for me first of all I
think it comes with being able to answer any angle or any perspective of a
question or a product because you've dosed so deep into it that it excites
you and it creates passion and I was I was actually looking at the metropolis
site before I came on here and I had a bunch of questions about kind of when you
started building how you're finding yourself now did you did you hold off on
launching it's obviously not the most opportune time to be launching the kind
of product that you're launching but you're launching anyhow which to me
means that I believe that you guys were incredibly passionate about the product
I love the website so I'd love to hear as an answer to my question kind of why
you're if to put it bluntly why you're pushing through with the product at this
time well we believe what we're building we believe this is where the future goes
and we I think what we're trying to do with our various platforms you have the
city you have the marketplace you have you know over 400 really fantastic
creators and brands that have you know part of our community for us if you make
a place that's really happening with interesting people and content and
curated we feel we feel people want that you know they you know they want
they want to go to good products good content interesting people so for us we
we don't really we don't really look at the market per se and say well we've
got to hold off I think we're building we're producing we're putting things out
there you know we do pivots here and there obviously I think all startups do
you know you react to how other people react to your product but we have this
vision and we feel like we're getting closer to it every day as we really
flush out this world so I don't know if that answer no that's what I hope you
answered I hope you'd answer is that you don't have to sell something you're
building a product that you believe in it doesn't matter when you're launching
it which is what I was hoping it's I think it goes back to the teaching not
preaching model right is that fair to say like you've seen like so many
internet people are like do this you gotta do this it's like it's like no
this is what's worked for me this is why it's worked for me this is what I
did you can do it you cannot do it up to you when people get very preachy with
their stuff I'm like I to know I personally it's you know so it's good to
kind of visual yeah go for it if you're looking at the project so I'm not a
flipper I'm not a like a gambler in the space if you look at people like golden
if you don't follow me should and people who really play the long game in
this it's the projects that are building for a purpose and are building
regardless of the market sentiments are the ones that last in the long term so
they might not be the most successful in the short medium term but if they're
built correctly and they're and they're passionate about the problem they're
solving the business they're building they're the ones that last so they
might not be that that billion dollar market cap or that that hype cycle
product they might you know one out of a hundred might and that's great for
them if they're already a good product but it's it's the projects that are
really building stuff that are the ones that that are gonna last through the mud
and and the stuff that you'll look back lots of these projects to plague and a
bunch of other NFT projects that you'll look back like that was obvious
there's no one I have to say this that's been a good dialogue I think you
have to perform better when you're sick so if you can get sick more often from
Asia yeah you perform better when you're sick it's like it's like fidgetils
like the Jordan flu game that's official has gone on right now he's
peak performance has been a dream you have top so I did tell our discord and I
did not announce this to Rashida Rania but you know me I'm gonna pull an
old-school trick I want everybody to go retweet the tweet that's pinned to the
top of the space here I found us some sweet custom metropolis skateboards
we're gonna give one away I'll do a random Twitter picker at the end of
the space and somebody will get a skateboard that's awful definitely do
that I feel like for so wide skateboards but it'll go take that so I'll go
retweet that post and we can well with this last time I wrote a skateboard my
dog was pulling me in Century City I fell into a large flower bed I walked
the skipper back to my doorman I said I'm way too old for this and I've
never ridden again no I don't I don't think that's right I think I think you
tried again I think you fell you failed I think you know business of life is about
you know keep getting up and you know you fall down sometimes get back up a
physical I think you should have a repeat the post I will do that right now
as well Rania I'm probably gonna mess up your name another thousand times today
but I do have a question you got it right I got it right okay now I gotta get
it wrong the next time just just even out the odds here I think that the
social fly thing is interesting and I say that because a lot of teams have
well periodically during you know bear market hype cycles if you will right so
it's it's something that I see that will be here in the next 25 years no
doubt when that kicks in I have no idea I almost kind of see this as a metaverse
product and not the sense that they're the same at all in a sense that they
have their own hype cycles the way that metaverse was a massive thing in 2021
and then people kind of came to conclusion that hey guys maybe it's not
that close as we think it is it'll be a thing one day but are we too early on
this very possibly for the metaverse stuff and people are kind of I think
came to that conclusion now which is great so my question for you is this
obviously a social fly I think has a place in our world it definitely will
it's just a one question but I do want to know what principles do you think
based off so far that make it I guess self-sustaining self-growing network
effect and make it feasible make it attractive on a hundred-year scale I
mean the way we approach social fight is we have this thing where it's we're
creating a platform where we connect fans to the people the creators they love
and vice versa so it's like a two-sided model so creators you know DJ's for
example want to monetize on a DJ mix but you know they want to connect with
their fans in a different way we sort of approach it like that you know there's
so much you can do already with social media but for us we're trying to add
that sort of how to put it like more immersive connections with your with fans
and with communities so that's why we have the city where you know an artist can
host events and maybe charge for tickets to that event or they can put an
exclusive fashion line and and sponsor a quest so you know you have to go on a
quest in order to to win something from one of your favorite brands or creators so
that's how we approach it I don't know if that makes sense for a hundred years
or now but it's really just the connecting people so connecting and you
know flip that so like my kids and you know they're teenagers they don't want to
go to the high street they don't want to buy the products from the main stores
they're all about buying it from that influencer or that artist that they
really love so that's really what we're kind of a problem that we're focused on
with with what we're building it's it's a good take I do want to say something
as well from my perspective when selling something that is new and
obviously we all to an extent are selling something when something that is
new you know you not only have to sell your product that relates to the feature
you also have to sell the feature so because SOFI is SOFI and NFTs are NFTs
and DeFi is DeFi it's all newer stuff you on behalf of selling your product to
I guess quote unquote normies or this the average person you do have to make
the case for the actual industry as well and not just a product like if you
were in the web Q native industry you would just say here's my thing it does
XYZ XYZ fantastic great for the fact that our distribution is so low
it's not as great as we need it to be it's better but it's not that it's not
where we need to be the the product needs to get sold on the
tech first as in the product within the tech
has to get sold so that collateral has to happen otherwise that connection from
industry to person then industry to then person to product
doesn't work Rania back to you no I was going to say
the way we approached metropolis x the marketplace is we never mentioned
NFTs and we don't even mention the blockchain
so for us it's really about you know and actually we have a lot of web 2 users
so there's a lot of you know digital product real world products
real world world events um but you know we never use the
language of having to sell a digital you know we call it digital
collectibles not NFTs or all that stuff so I don't know if that
yeah it's it's it's another ad of which is great but do you
but like so if you guys were to pitch a normie today
what would you tell them because I get it people get it
listeners here get it the community gets it what would you tell the people who
haven't heard about so far before how would you first because there's
when you're selling something there's there's barriers that have to get
punched through in order for that sale to happen right like it has to be like
step one said step two said step three said the first thing when you sell sofi
or your product is selling sofi first once they get it knock into the product
okay cool so how do you sell sofi first rania to a
normie and then sell the product after just just for normie instances
well i don't really i'm not we don't really sell
sofi i would say i'm not sure that's not really how we approach it
we really just approach it as like kind of like a supreme model actually
where it's like this week we're dropping blondishes
uh new collection you know some of her digital assets unlock
like a cool dj mix her hoodie um her sort of concert tickets so
we we sell it more in that way which is like here all these amazing people that
are part of our community these amazing creators
check it out and you know we drop it week by week by week
like like the supreme's of the world okay so that would have sold a normie
rania because you mentioned supreme so you drew to what you already knew with
that person what they already know which is
you know association they would have been sold on that narrative because that's
that works so that was good you did that you did accidentally but that was
that was good fidgetl back to you so you were asking about social
fire i didn't know where you're talking about social fire um
i think it's actually one of the hardest things to quote unquote sell or
explain um and i think that the strongest future
for social fire um i don't think it'd be called social
fire much like nfts won't be called nfts uh is is team aspects um community
aspects but in uh done bar number efficiencies so
um we have we have twitter which is you know massive and everybody all at
once and people always try to have social
that competes with twitter or with uh broad massive
community i think that the future of social fire is
uh collaboration in a social setting amongst
teams or clans uh depending on the on the purpose but
end 15 to 150 max of people in groups that um
that is the most effective for uh kind of
banding people together and pushing common interests
um i agree with one thing i don't think it'll be called so far
i i think there's going to be a name that makes it seem uh
more more consumable more digestible the way that digital collectibles really did
a number on reddit i just what that name is i i have no idea i i
i genuinely don't know but elixir games i do want to go over to
you guys um and ask you the question of when
you guys are when you guys are building something
in house um have you facilitate that narrative that thing that product
with a bunch of different people do you facilitate that
through one message or are you going through different messages
per person per per i guess per look like audience
i think for i think we're thinking long term
i think you really probably need to sort of frame your
product or you know the reason or how you're going to market it to a
definitely different audience uh there's no there's no denying now
the same as you were saying that maybe here we're talking about defi
sofi and all those different acronyms and terms that we like to define
there's no way someone annoy me as i will probably understand what we're
talking about and there's no there's nothing more
important to find a tag or an appropriate name for
for a solution or for a product and um i think for us also if we if you know if
we're looking sort of long term we have to know okay how we're going to launch
uh for example our launch padra product now in order to fit into the web3
space in the market but how this game is gonna is gonna
bring or is gonna onboard the next wave of users
there are some ips for example that we've acquired that are basically being
developed with web to the mind and we we're going to integrate the web3
but the web3 aspect of it and try to sort of
relaunch it again and you know make it successful with the extra features but
100 i mean you for us we're such a small space here
i mean long term business if we want to want to develop something big and
huge we need to consider um the appeal of
that product from the insider perspective here but from the
outsider perspective as well
that's a good take hasan i do want to get back to you
um obviously you and your team do stuff that's that's super purposeful
do you think that teams can scale and can do something
quote unquote of importance that that is you know calculated by market value
um by not possibly by not having purpose what they're doing
or unless or the only way to grow something successfully is not purposeful
what you're doing or do you think the inverse can also be true as well
yeah i mean the question really comes down to what's the time frame upon which
you're really looking at things because you know we've seen this in crypto many
times where if you just market things in a certain direction in
certain way and you have the wrong incentives and the wrong alignment and
you know really just smoke and mirrors well sure you can have a short
term success but you know is there going to be any type of longevity to
that no shot you know if you actually want any sort of sustainability
longevity you absolutely need purpose vision
mission culture you know those are the types of things that need to be locked
into the teeth you need to know exactly where you want
to go in five years ten years and why you're doing it what's your why
what's your how uh you know and it starts with why right
that's like simon's the next book uh is you get you got to find your why uh
and so you know long story short sure you can have a little bit of a
short term success if you don't have purpose
and you might have the wrong incentives but for anything sustainable
anything that you're trying to actually set a legacy with
which i feel like any brand in crypto should be trying to do
you know these are the future legacy brands
you absolutely need that purpose dialed in great take
fidgetl to you again i want to stack our ph's question over to you
is a shortage of is a shortage of a skill
fidgetl of any skill doesn't matter what it is within
within the setting of business is a shortage of skill
better than a charge of purpose or is a shortage of purpose
better to have than a shortage of skill when it comes to scaling within a five
year scalp always a shorter of skill i've seen i've
seen the most uh unskilled people build incredible
things when they're passionate about it uh
you can learn skill it's hard it's hard to fabricate passion
um and if you don't have passion your skills don't matter
do you think one of the other fidgetl skill and purpose has the same
i guess response when it comes to building a community
or is it the same because it's it's just the same
i guess it depends what you might mean by skill so define skills
because building community i don't think i mean marketing is a skill but
right so the person so let's say that the person the person that
advertises very well if he or she more likely to build a community
create a community versus the person is more purposeful on the product i
was more likely again i think purposeful i think we're all kind of saying the same
thing which is uh short term versus long term and i
think purpose is what drives a product long term it doesn't guarantee success
but if it's what carries any pop of success
to long-term success and as you know you learn along the way right so every
every business or or anything you try period as long as you try hard enough
you'll learn the lessons and persevere you don't have to be the best at it
but it nobody's gonna be perfect at anything
over and over again or even the first time for the most part
um so i i would always choose purpose over
over skill or passion over purpose i would agree to that
uh rania i do want to turn this over to you
i think internally building the team is is just as important as
externally and all the external affairs that would occur like community building
these things as well um i do think if the nucleus is not
right it doesn't make any sense the outside stuff
also doesn't make any sense it doesn't align very well so when you
scale your team out rania um how do you guys
how do you go about it as a ceo scaling out your team like when you're
building the team what are things that you look for whether
it's hires whether it's development whether it's
onboarding process like what do you guys do
internally to make sure that the nucleus is the best that it can be
so that the external affairs are reflection of the internal stuff because
you've seen this where like the internal affairs within a team is a complete
disaster and then the external community is not
very happy about it and the two are kind of like clashing heads and becomes a
even bigger disaster so what do you guys do internally to make sure that
everything is getting done properly well i think it goes back to what
everyone is saying as well which is we we really select people who are
passionate about what we're building so it's not just a job for them so like
you know we're very small team actually we're only six people
um and a lot of people are like whoa you built all this with such a small team
and it's because everyone you know what goes overboard they don't
see this as oh it's just my job i'm just you know doing my nine to five it's
it becomes like they're everything they drink sleep
eat metropolis and you know maybe that's not healthy but
i think everyone on the team and you feel it as an energy
has the project's best interest at hand
versus their own you know personal game and we've had people come and go
um we've seen people come and go that didn't like that or
just that just didn't work for them but as a team where
i think what binds us is this again this vision we all want it to succeed we
all can see where it will lead to and so you don't
have to force or make anyone do anything things just get
done and because everyone knows what they need to do
is your team strictly native web 3 or does your team have some overlap with web
2 experience as well as like do you hire from web 2 or
just our sector natively do you hire from everything
because i i don't think it's wise to just hire web 3 web 2 i mean i think
again we really want to transcend this web 2 web 3 it's the future it's an
evolution of how we participate online how we shop so
for us we always look at is that person the best person
for that particular job whether they've done web 3 or web 2 i mean our team has
a nice mix um i'd say it's almost 50 50 actually
that's a good ratio that's a really good ratio actually yeah
yeah most teams are around 90 10 that's a that's a really good ratio
i definitely support that ratio um what else what else when you when you
guys are going through um i guess like the hiring process how
big of it how important is it for you to actually
i guess test and see if this person has a good web base
or a good knowledge base of our industry like how do you like how do you test
those parameters well it depends if it's like a cto
role or you know a very tech heavy that we
really look at their track record and what they've built and
you know we always do a testing period with whoever we hire
um i think that's important so you never you'll never know until
you're really working with that person doesn't matter the resume doesn't matter
you know any of that stuff it's not till you get stuck in
um but on the tech side our cto is amazing
and and he you know usually handles that
sort of betting process i'm more on the the creative vision and
and i've been you know i've been doing this
for a long time and other mediums so i i kind of know what i want in terms of a
team member when it comes to sort of creative execution
is is there a um is there a massive difference between two worlds
like from an operational scale up your context
how different is the world of two to three and what are the challenges that
exist in three that don't have that don't exist in two
i mean for me it's i've always treated metropolis as you're building a company
and prior to metropolis i built um something called pips island which was
somewhat very very different but also had a lot of similarities
uh it was a big immersive experience for families it was in time square
you know it also played on mythology and lore and
you know different multimedia so for me i think it's your building
something that's robust you use the skills and that you have
as a web 2 person in the past you apply it
to sort of this new wild west of web 3 um i think the beauty of
where we're at with web 3 is it's so new and you don't have these
blockers and these obstacles like anything's possible so i think the spirit
of web 3 is really what's appealing whereas
in theater and film and these other old mediums it's there's always like the
institutions or the way you're supposed to do it so
um so i lost track of yeah no you're right you
you mentioned a good point there's a ton of saturation that exists i mean our
market to an extent is saturated with certain things i would agree with that
but i think the level of saturation that exists outside of the industry is
is probably a lot more it's more depth it's definitely there's
definitely a lot more out of it which is
you know good bad ugly depending on depending on who you are and how you
operate it but what are what are your team's goals to kind of
get past the point of saturation to where you now
can establish yourself as a quote unquote figurehead of a team in the industry
because i mean at some point the saturation is going to go the way it
always does with saturated markets but the top 10
top 5 percent do thrive because they're top of the line right
so how do you get to that place i think positioning is a massive one for
well i just think keep building in the way that we are which is
you know excellence like whatever you do and
uh the decisions you make it's all for the whole conversation that we're having
there's a you know a robust why and you're executing
very well you you're nurturing your community i think
community is key that's one big thing i think in
web 3 um and you know i don't think about that really i just
just get on with it and and i think we all believe that what we're doing
has has magic and is is different to what's out there and we'll just continue
yeah super healthy as well great hasan i do want to ask you something
and we were going over this this week and i have a thesis
you'll probably have the same one i do when i ask you the question if you had
to place all social media platforms marketing funnel and then there's top
there's no there's low there's even mid mid low and then mid to top
right where would you put the crypto twitter
x twitter community at what part of the funnel
and then which funnel or which part of that funnel would you say is top
hasan well it's industry specific for everything
but you know specific to crypto and crypto twitter
i feel like it's the top and even the mid but
you know it definitely serves as both um you know it's definitely the top too
because that's the first thing that people look at you don't think you
don't think that you don't think that ticktock is top
and then x is low to mid i mean i would say traditionally that would be the case
but everything financial because you know finance moves so quick news moves
so fast that's where twitter thrives and then
you know even when i just look at people right and they go look at an instagram
account for an nft project or crypto project
they almost give that no weight like with
nft projects crypto projects on twitter and instagram they don't get love
you know actually for me like the top of the funnel is twitter you know it's like
i'm investing in a in a project for an angel investment or for rvc
i'm going there twitter i'm not checking their other socials so it's the top of
the funnel too that's interesting is it possible to be both
that it can be bottom and top is that possible it's just all the way through
it's yeah i mean i i think uh people and no
bottom and top you can definitely be bottom and top but i think specifically
for for twitter that's kind of what i meant right is like it could be lower in
the funnel but at the same time it is still that top
of funnel as well because that's where people go
like if you ask somebody what their project is the first question is always
what's your turn though immediately here they're
coming in they've already came in because they saw something on the
okay well yeah in that case like with a pudgy penguins model
then for sure it's just not many projects i'd say like it's like five
have that approach yeah because i was thinking about this today i'm like
we live in an echo chamber the distribution matters but i don't
think anybody's reading our crypto twitter stuff
i don't i don't think people even find crypto twitter as much as i think they
do but they do like the reddit thing didn't happen because
of crypto twitter it happened because of reddit
right and the same thing can be said for tiktok like i like the memes on tiktok
and the google search that happened the past two weeks that all came from
outside of outside of this platform that trickled here afterwards it's
like okay that is showing me something but
this is also showing something yeah it's a little bit a little bit of a mess
no i i completely agree andrew in a bull market when people are going
crazy and you have all those tiktok influencers talking about crypto
then yeah definitely that turns into the top funnel because it's getting more
views and more eyeballs but even in the case of for example nft nick and this is
why i don't think like we're at that peak bull runner even close yet
is like i just haven't seen that same twitter and instagram vibe and amount
of videos that i did during the bull market
but then even in the case of things like nft nick i mean
like all the people who are outside of this echo chamber they they found him
he probably fell asleep he's sick and he fell no
your phone keeps on your phone keeps on breaking out i can't hear what you're
i'll repeat it um do you think that x's bottom point on top battle
the entire funnel of our industry what do you think it is
social funnel social type of funnel financial bottom of funnel
that's fair that's super fair that's super fair
there i don't think i can even argue that one that i was gonna try to say
something like no i i definitely agree with that as well
uh yeah rania rania yeah it's not quite well for me today um i do have to
ask for those who have not heard about
metropolis it's their first time today hearing about it listening to it
hearing to you speak um hopefully they give you a follow as well
what is it what are you guys doing why is it important
who do you guys strive to be in the next let's say five months because
that's probably is your time frame time frame to kind of gauge it on
what do we so okay you want a basic synopsis so metropolis the most
happening city in the metaverse it's where you go
to connect with the coolest creators and brands it's where you go
to go questing on our new questing platform coming post token launch
it's where you go to immerse yourself in the most
amazing lore and mythology that's you know been
year in the making so we call it the capital city
of the metaverse can i ask what makes it amazing
you said amazing three times what makes it amazing
great content meaningful connections with people
you have fun i think that's a big one it's a really fun place
to go it's it's a place where you can also be creative
um and the aesthetic with very a lot on in terms of things looking beautiful
place that's wonderful wondrous um and the platform itself i would say
you should just in a way i would almost say that the
platform speak to itself for itself so i would go into metropolis x create you
know create your avatar uh we're working right now on 3d
fully interoperable avatars so those will be launching soon
um as i mentioned the questing platform but i'd say just go
play around and try it out i'd rather than me kind of
saying how amazing it is three times how easy yeah i would also agree with
that how easy is the sign-up process very easy very easy so for metropolis x we
actually wanted to see how many web 2 people we could
get on board so if you don't want to connect to wallet
we did just super simple so uh email login uh that's it and
you can pay with credit card um we have custodial wallets
so we made it very simple as well just for sort of
all devices all devices all devices yeah okay that's also a massive plus what's
what's your thoughts on the uh not your sector but
what's your thoughts on the mobile gaming stuff we're not really in
mobile gaming yeah it's not really our one sector yeah i just figured i'd ask i
mean some people have takes on it um yeah i'm just kind of curious because i
think that's uh if i mean it's probably the most
convenient that it's ever going to be i mean i'd
argue that people spend more time on their phones they do any other device in
the world uh so just for convenience sake if
you can kind of catch them in the environment of doing something
you can kind of alter the behavior to do the behavior that you want just
because it's just common sense you catch them in the environment
of which they're in you can alter the behavior so now they're doing your thing
in the environment that they're naturally in we do it more with just
this sort of you can come in 2d 2.5d now
you know moving to 3d so it's more ease of use
that's how we approach it so you know like you don't have to always
do you guys have some metrics that i can that you can talk about like
average time spent um average actions done what's the most
common thing people do like things like this just kind of
paint a better picture i mean people spend a lot of time i don't have the
exact metrics on me um but what we what we're doing what
we're constantly working to improve is that you want to keep coming back you
want to keep recustomizing your avatar you want to
get that trait which will unlock a really cool quest
um you want to come back to the city because there are
new events happening so everything that we're building always goes back to
people don't just go try it one time and then they forget about it
they keep wanting to come back because it serves them in some way
have you guys captured any normies attention i have to ask this
sorry have you captured what have you guys captured any of the normies
attention oh yeah definitely i mean if it's again if you look at the creators
and brands we've launched and it's basically we're
activating their communities um and that's how we're catching
um the the fans loving that that creator and then they're
interested in coming to our platform because they're interested in that
creator so that's how we've been capturing them and i'd say it's about
40 percent of our traffic is the newbies the web 2
that's a good bunch that's a really good bunch
and the reason why i'd ask is i had a conversation earlier today about this
and fidget i want to direct this to you i feel like you have a hot take on
this um distribution matters but conversion
matters more so there's certain yes i'm gonna say
this i'm gonna preface right now it's a different niche
there's multiple games out there with multiple gameplay footage
of them doing the thing streamers doing the thing all this stuff
if you can think of the content piece it's out there it's gotten 100 000 views
million views 20 million views 10 million views but you can talk to some
of these teams not a lot of them but there are some so we do have the
dressy issue because there are some um the conversion is not fantastic
so they're getting the distribution they're seeing all these numbers like
why is anybody playing the game fidget why the hell is that why are
being played like in terms of content but the distribute the conversion numbers
are not fantastic this is actually something i've been
having a lot of conversations about recently with regards to the new
airdrop meta um and the points metas and stuff like
that with andrew with andrew of course um
with everybody i had a couple spaces on it well just for
in fact if you look at my uh well little little known fact
if you look at my twitter page right now it's covered in farming
it's not me farming i paid a dude to farm for me
um not to necessarily make the money but well i don't have the time to do it
but if i'm going to be doing projects with
similar mechanics i had to understand farming and understand
like the extent to what people will do which things they will won't do what
are their expectations what does that experience and ecosystem look like
one of the most interesting things that i've been having conversations with
for specifically game and block uh and some other projects
nifty island magic eden is
what does conversion actually look like in terms of
spraying and praying how do you how do you bridge the gap between
cash out the door or time out the door time in the gate
cash in the gate expectations product use what is the
life cycle and arc of your product look like what does that mean for the
experience of the consumer between the initial attention and then retention
even if there is conversion um and so that i don't have the answers for you
obviously if you broke it down you could get
nitty-gritty on every project and understand
how you're doing your marketing how that how that converts into
attention how that attention converts into usage how that usage converts into
retention physical what's the easiest touch point so the easiest touch point
to convert on is what it's fun right money right
the normies are in at the end of the day money is the best converter right it's a
strongest incentive but how do you show but how do you
gameplay distribute money you can i mean you can
but i don't think that's sustainable though i mean money fixes the short term
but you're ripping off the bandit you need stitch i'm agreeing
and that's what that's what i'm super interested in at the moment is that
is that that gap bridging it's it's hard as
yeah because i was talking about this with andrew as well um
if you guys don't know i'm andrew saunders great guy cmo patchville a great
guy there's no contest that great guy super
smart uh smarter than probably 95 people percent in the space probably
like 95 yeah 99 yeah we can we can argue that we can
argue that as well definitely make that case
yeah and the conversation was about this it's like the distribution is there
but the conversion lacks why and i think there's a lot of great
products i think there's a lot of great products in the industry
but but something's not clicking i some of it
in in my head feels like it's the message because you can have a quick
question yeah have you farmed any airdrops before
no i had on touch but you've never you've never done any
no i don't touch those social ones any farming of any of any token ever
yeah yeah i've done the pudgy penguins but the pudgy penguin ones but the social
did you keep the tokens when you got them uh some of them most people just most
people not only do they sell not only do they sell them immediately
but they don't even understand when i ask them did they hold them
so there you go yeah it's the it's it's a layer of education that brings
stickiness and then brings the next layer which is
retention which is rebuys so it's it's probably education sticky
uh rebuys like that's you want to get to the the rebuys stage within a matter of
two three weeks all the time between the airdrop is
announced between when the airdrop actually done
and it's tough you got like two three weeks something's got a couple months
but it's super super tough i'm empathetic to anybody who's doing this
because it's not been done but if you can knock out of the park you're good to
go rania i'll toss over to you last thing
what what are you very excited about with metropolis
in the coming months and what should people also be excited about
i'm really excited that we're finally tying
everything that we've been building like all these like there's the city
there's the market there are the avatars there's the lore and
finally i think we're threading it all together
um into like a really coherent uh i keep calling it ecosystem so i
think that's that's what's great is just seeing how
all this work that we've been doing now for almost two years
it's all going to come together in a very impactful way
um we say commerce x gaming x experiences x culture all of it
awesome stuff appreciate you guys time is your follow metropolis account
thank you to everybody who joined here today it's been a great conversation it
is recorded so yes you can share this with your friends with people you think
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so please once again share this space everybody thank you for your time
thank you for your your capacity your willingness to be here we appreciate you
all we'll see you guys next week have a great