The Pursuit of Scrappiness #48 Building products for Metaverse, partnering with global brands & entertainers, Zuckerberg’s big bet and opportunities of the decentralized world with Timmu Tõke (Ready Player Me)
Timmu Tõke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ready Player Me - the cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse. Timmu has been working on 3D design, virtual reality and the metaverse for more than 8 years becoming a true pioneer in avatars for the metaverse, a space that exploded in 2021.
In this episode we talk all things metaverse, the unique positioning of Ready Player Me in it. We also talk about user experience, business models, global brands and opportunities in the metaverse. Finally we talk centralised vs. decentralised approaches to the metaverse and the current and potential role of Meta.
The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps
[02:50] - INTRODUCTION AND THE METAVERSE
- Creating transferable avatars across 1000s of metaverse worlds
- Getting married on the metaverse
- How people choose what to look like on the metaverse
- Accessibility of the metaverse
- Connectivity of the gaming world
- What skills do you need to build something on the metaverse
[12:25] - META AND ZUCK’S INFLUENCE ON THE METAVERSE ADOPTION
- Trying to be THE metaverse
- Closed vs. open metaverse
- Winning the hardware game
[14:25] - ON USER EXPERIENCE IN THE METAVERSE
- Increasing importance of immersive devices (AR/VR)
- Building open worlds for interconnectivity
- Connecting different games and different blockchains - the challenge
[17:00] - ON THE BUSINESS USE CASES OF THE METAVERSE
- Buying digital items for your avatar and using across games
- Productivity and meetings apps as a big market
- Running virtual education activities
- The value of VR business meetings
[20:35] - THE ORIGINS AND BUSINESS MODEL OF READY PLAYER ME
- Starting from hardware and 3D printing
- Business model of Readyplayer.me
- Pay to win vs. pay to flex
- Social aspect of gaming for the kids
[27:40] - GETTING DEALS WITH GLOBAL BRANDS AND SCALING
- Being overwhelmed with demand
- Focus on onboarding developers
- Early to the game
- The more self-service the better
- Working with blockchain projects
- Making a difficult problem simple
[31:20] - ON MAINTAINING EDGE OVER COMPETITORS
- Years of practical experience
- High network effect
- Open platforms
- Owning the end-user
[36:30] - BRANDS TO FOLLOW AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE METAVERSE
- Nike+Artifact
- Adidas
- People are building metaverse from anywhere - decentralization
- Meta and who will win the platform race
To reach out to Timmu use: Linkedin
Website: https://readyplayer.me/
Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
Support for this episode comes from Venetor > https://www.venetor.co/
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The full interview with Timmu is available NOW on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts