2 8 Metaverse: A Mobile-First Approach Q&A with Lana Hopkins Lana Hopkins Co Founder and CEO @ some.place 2 9 We went with a mobile-first approach for two main reasons: accessibility and an elevated social experience. My Co-Founder, Juliana, and I started building some·place a little over two years ago but the problems we’re looking to solve started much earlier. Our society has tried, and frankly failed, to find the correct balance and medium for a digital social experience. Algorithms have siloed us into echo chambers and we spend hours unhappily scrolling through 2D content that is supposed to replicate real life. It’s frustrating to be aware that your reality is being warped and there’s not much you can do about it but shut down. This frustration was all exacerbated by the pandemic when we were struggling to maintain human connection with friends and family. I personally burnt out on Zoom meetings about three weekends into lockdown here in Australia. So I started going for walks and I’d take Juliana “with me” on Facetime. There was something meditative about walking on the beach and talking to my friend across the globe. As we talked for more than hundreds of hours, we kept coming down to a core problem; I could almost experience her reality in California, but not quite. There still weren’t any tools available to us to socialize exactly how we wanted. In these conversations, we talked about the technology leaps in Web3 and blockchain and how as these new horizons were being explored, we didn’t feel like any of the product options were made with us in mind. Everyone leading executive teams and sitting on boards looked the same as in Web2 – a recent study just found that of the 32 biggest crypto companies in the world, 100% had male CEOs; and eight of the top companies in the crypto space lacked a single female board member. Why did you choose to create a mobile-first metaverse experience? Do you think mobile-first is the future of the metaverse? 1 ‘Crypto bro’ isn’t just slang. New research shows the industry is dominated by men Read full article 3 0 So as we started to build our own product, inaccessibility in Web3 and inadequate social tools were the main problems that we looked to solve. And, in all of our research and development, we realized that the smartphone is a natural link between these two issues. People aren’t walking around during their daily lives with VR headsets or Google Glasses. The ability to bring the digital layer of your life with you relies on mobile. It’s much easier to share Web3 as a social experience IRL through a mobile phone than it is with a computer. The phone was invented to help us communicate. So it’s naturally where we turn when we want to be social. 84% of the world has a smartphone so it is truly more accessible than any other platform. We’re bringing our some·place world to the people who haven’t traditionally explored a “metaverse” concept and saying, “Here’s something much less scary that can enrich your life instead of taking it over.” Our emphasis on elevated design and curation also plays a part in this. It makes it so much more approachable for the people who aren’t gamers or tech wizards. To answer your second question, I’m much less concerned about the future of the metaverse right now because we’re so far off from defining what that concept even means. I don’t think we’ve peeled back the first layer of how we’ll onboard the world into Web3 and it’s foolish to think that 10 years from now we’ll all be sitting around with the same smartphones having the same issues. What we’re focused on is forging a new path in the history of being social online. This comes with responsibility and the driving force to change systemic issues that have forced us all to be less compassionate, less connected and frankly less curious about changing our minds than ever before. We like to think of ourselves as part of Web2.5. Accessibility is such a broad term because it encompases so many areas of focus: physical and geographical limitations, monetary inequity, systemic problems, etc. A lot of these boil down to products, Web3 and beyond, not being built for everyone from the start. You can’t expect to sprinkle a bit of accessibility onto your product cake at the last minute and have it taste like rainbows. An easily identifiable issue to me is the issue of time. Who are the people who don’t have time to explore these concepts as they are right now? When we stop asking “Who is there right now?” and start asking “Who doesn’t have the means to be there right now?” we find a lot more insight into the barriers that are keeping people away. What issues surrounding accessibility do you see within the metaverse? What steps can companies take to make the metaverse more accessible? 2 3 1 Bringing together a diverse team in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, age, career backgrounds, etc., makes it so much easier to identify gaps in accessibility from the beginning. Even in our community of users, we try to foster as much diversity as possible. - And please, invest in companies that are founded by women. The stats about VC funding given to women are abysmal, especially considering how many start-ups founded by women succeed. Last year, female founders raised just 2% of Venture Capital money. To us, the Potion is the first bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Beyond just giving you early access, it really cements you as part of our future. It’s a 3D collectible that you can see right in the app. It has AR capability so you can bring it with you. And also, potions aren’t a gendered concept. You don’t have to pick a potion that “looks” like you so you can focus on how it makes you feel. Beyond all that they are each a work of art – the shapes were carefully crafted by an artist and we spent months going through hundreds of texture options to make sure that all areas of our physical world were represented. We’ve always thought of Potion Holders as a steering committee for some·place. We look to them first to give us feedback and help guide this massive “ship” that we’re sailing. And, it’s a diverse community for sure from grandmas to college students, on every continent. Finally, it doesn’t matter how many Potions you have. Access equals one and we were always clear about that. It’s how we are democratizing a lot of our thinking. Tell us more about The Potion as a collectible and access key into some.place. What was the strategy behind creating an NFT that also gives special access to holders? 3 Female Founders Raised Just 2% of Venture Capital Money in 2021 Read full article 3 2 Every single person who either sees our preview videos or plays with our app says “this is amazing!” So now it’s up to us to get it in the hands of those people over the next six months so they can help us spread the word. With an app store launch approaching, we’re strategically growing our organic community so we have many people ready to help onboard and encourage new users. That solid foundation will allow room for growth and expansion all at a sustainable scale. We’re currently working with our first pilot program that will onboard a large number of users from an NFT project/ brand to further expand our thinking. In the pipeline, we’re developing a 3D marketplace, more tools for users to foster connection with others, opportunities for brands and groups to grow their communities and more magical locations for everyone to explore. We aim to be the ultimate community for communities. Rather than hastily fast-forwarding to an unknown future, we believe success lies in more of a Web2.5 approach: stressing intuitive user experience and design. Ultimately, that will make Web3 easier for everyone to use. Remember that we are trying to make systemic changes in the technology sector so we can’t go about building our product like other social apps. We’re starting with a community that is not only diverse but ready to make waves and asking them to guide us toward a more healthy and sustainable way of thinking with appreciation and respect for one another. Lastly, we see ourselves as bringing together like-minded others, but that doesn’t mean staying inside your comfort zone. I like to think of the example of an age-old question: Are you a cat person or a dog person? On the surface, cat-people and dog-people aren’t like-minded at all. In the traditional social media model, we’d section them off into the two groups and let them talk amongst themselves. Dig down a layer though and you find lots of common bonds: a love for animals, responsibility of taking care of something other than yourself, ability to adapt to different circumstances. Humans are actually masterful at finding things they have in common and this is the social experience of the real world that we’re looking to emulate. This is a simple example but it goes to show you how we’re thinking about expanding your world instead of shrinking it. What efforts is some.place currently focused on to expand their community? What else does the future hold for some.place? 4 We aim to be the ultimate community for communities. Rather than hastily fast-forwarding to an unknown future, we believe success lies in more of a Web2.5 approach: stressing intuitive user experience and design. Ultimately, that will make Web3 easier for everyone to use.